


Bruises

by AlastorGrim



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Avengers reassemble, Flip Side AU, Hero Wade Wilson, Mental Instability, Mercenary Peter Parker, Multi, Not Infinity War/Endgame Compliant, Past Irondad, Past Parksborn, Patchwork Timeline, Self-Mutilation, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, The Boxes Being The Boxes, Throwing All Spideys Into One Spidey, Tony Stark's Martyr Complex, Weasel Being Weasel, mentioned rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2020-05-07 12:25:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19209388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlastorGrim/pseuds/AlastorGrim
Summary: After the incident with the Vulture, Aunt May transfers Peter back over to his old high school. While he was gone, several things changed. Those changes begin to clash with Peter until a fallout is unavoidable. The resulting disaster proves to be too much for Peter, and he breaks. Spider-Man disappears.After Weapon X, Wade was ready to say fuck the world and stop giving a shit. However, a chance encounter with a certain star-spangled superhero pulls him away from the dark path he was ready to head down, and gets him an unsteady seat at the Hero Table.The world wasn't ready for another Avenger--especially not one like Deadpool. But too bad, because Spider-Man is gone. In his place is The Spider. And he's ready to watch the world burn.





	1. Origin Story Time

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Boys Wear Red...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3294914) by [Orcusnox (Cat9894)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat9894/pseuds/Orcusnox). 
  * Inspired by [Flip Side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1600262) by [Rider_of_Spades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rider_of_Spades/pseuds/Rider_of_Spades). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO! This is my first fic in the Spideypool fandom, which you'll probably be able to tell when you read it, heh. Few things before we start. 
> 
> Harry is a dick in this fic. Do I hate Harry? No. I just needed him to be terrible for plot reasons, so he's terrible. If that bothers you, then you should bounce out now. 
> 
> Peter is dark in this fic. Like, murder you and your wife and your kids and your cat type dark. Stab himself in the leg and giggle about it type dark. If that squicks you, you should bounce out now.
> 
> The timeline is me yeeting the new movie!verse into the old movie!verse into the comics. Green Goblin happened, then Civil War, then Homecoming, then Baby Goblin. Doc Oc isn't mentioned, but that will be explained in later chapters. 
> 
> I think that's it! Happy reading, Dolls!

Aunt May was not one to stand idly by while her nephew got bullied. Or, when she thought he was being bullied. How else would nerdy little Peter have gotten those cuts on his face?

That was why she had moved him away from his old high school after that whole incident with Mr. Osborne.

"They broke your ribs, Peter! And your arm! Why won't you tell me who it was?" 

But Peter had kept his mouth shut, the guilt over Norman's death sealing his silence on the matter. May had threatened and pleaded, but eventually gave up and went through with her 'drastic measures'. He'd moved to his new school, met Ned, Liz, and MJ, and quickly gained an actual bully who went by the name Flash. The whole thing wasn't very good for Peter's already wounded ego. But through it all, Peter was able to hold onto the fact that he was doing good things on the down-low, even if he hid behind a mask to do it. 

And then Peter met Tony Stark. 

Tony Stark waltzed into his dreary room, called him out on being Spider-Man, and offered him the chance of a lifetime. A chance to prove himself. A chance to be a real hero. Peter would've had to have been insane to decline. 

But the thing about Peter was, after big events like _fighting Captain America_ , he had a very hard time settling back down. He was so eager to help again, that he became a pretty large nuisance to Happy with his check-ins and phone calls. What could Peter say? He was excitable!

Then Peter got his wish. The Vulture happened. And it was _horrible_.

Peter had acted rashly and endangered a lot of people. He had nightmares about blood dripping from his hands and being suffocated underneath three tons of rubble. It was as almost as catastrophic as Norman. The combined guilt of both of them ensured that he was quick to decline Mr. Stark's offer to join the Avengers. It wasn't that he didn't want to, because Peter wanted to accept so much it hurt, but the truth was that he just wasn't _ready_. He wanted to get the taste of dust out of his mouth and the blood out from beneath his nails before he called himself an actual hero.

Aunt May had a freak out similar to the Norman Incident ™, and when Peter once again refused to elaborate on how he'd gotten so injured, she made yet another rash decision of mothering and filed the paperwork for him to switch schools again. Back to his old school, because if this was going to happen anywhere she sent him then it might as well be closer to their apartment where she could storm down there to give the Principal a tongue lashing if needed. 

Peter had finished out his year, said tearful goodbyes to Ned and MJ, who made him swear to keep in touch, and took the summer to try and recenter himself. Gather his wits so his ribs didn't ache every time he saw a large black bird or an oddly shaped green sign.

It was therapeutic, almost, to lapse back into solving the menial problems of everyday folk. It calmed Peter's mind, until he almost felt ready to take Mr. Stark up on his offer. But he never got the chance.

When school started up again, Peter started his Junior year back at Midtown. He was welcomed back with open arms by the only two people who recognized him: Gwen and Harry. 

Gwen Stacy was just as beautiful as she was when he'd left, if not more so. Harry had filled out even more, broadened until he was a good half foot taller than Peter. Both of them appeared to have grown a lot more than Peter in the year or so he'd been gone, but Peter soothed his pride by telling himself that character growth was just as important. Despite a few teasing comments on his height, however, he was able to settle back into a relatively normal routine with them. Peter was able to talk to both of them without the year and a half of absence between them being too awkward.

What _was_ awkward, was when Peter discovered that he was bisexual. And very attracted to both of his very attractive best friends. Especially Harry. 

Peter found his eyes lingering on the broadness of his friend's shoulders, the strong line of his jaw, and had a small panic attack when Harry caught him looking.

If Peter was entirely honest with himself, he had been too stunned when Harry started to show interest in him—in _him_ , Puny Parker—to notice that the relationship they had started to build was not...healthy. Peter's crippling self-deprecation outside of the suit was his fatal flaw. Turning a blind eye to Harry's behavior might've also stemmed from Peter guilt over Norman's death. Harry had called him mourning his father more times than Peter could count in the summer before Peter left, and if he had been drowning in his sea of guilt then, he was sinking in a vat of quicksand now. 

With Harry, Peter wasn't Spider-Man. Harry coaxed him into being Just Peter with flirtation, clinging hands, and soft kisses. And for the first time ever, he didn't _mind_ being Just Peter. He reveled in it, curled into Harry's web like a flower to the sun. 

But the problem, Peter soon discovered, was that he _couldn't_ be Spider-Man with Harry. Harry made sure he was always Peter. 

And Peter was _weak_.

Gwen was cut from their friendship almost as soon as Peter and Harry started dating, and Peter barely noticed. He started hanging out at Harry's house, spending the night there instead of patrolling. Before Peter knew it, his relationship with Aunt May was strained, his communication with Ned and MJ had been cut completely off, and Gwen seemed almost afraid to approach him in the hallways. But Peter was happy.

Until a month in, when Aunt May died of a heart attack while Peter was away at Harry's.

It didn't make sense, she'd been _fine_ , she'd been _healthy_ , Peter didn't _understand_ —

Consumed by grief, when Harry asked if Peter wanted to move in with him, Peter accepted. Harry was there to help him through his misery. And Peter could do nothing but accept whatever Harry wanted to give him, because he had no one else. Soon soft, reassuring kisses became questing hands tucked underneath his clothes. Peter was too blindsided with grief to understand anything other than the fact that Harry was safe and he made Peter feel nice.

Until the first time Peter said no. 

It was like a switch had been flipped. Harry went from soft and sweet to mercurial and domineering. Peter was _locked_ in a bedroom, tied up in bonds he should've been able to escape from but couldn't. He supposed that he should've been grateful that Harry never actually fucked him. He seemed more interested in playing with him the entire weekend. 

"You're so pretty, Pete. So, so pretty. Especially when you're not talking."

The taste of rubber wouldn't leave Peter's mouth even after he'd been released to go back to school.

It was a week before Peter sought out Gwen, begging for her help because he'd made a mistake, he knew, just please _help him_. Gwen was quick to agree, gave Peter her address so he could discreetly move all of his things to her place; so he could run. Like a coward.

Then Harry Osborne decided he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. The Green Goblin began to terrorize the city again.

Peter sucked it up and pulled on the suit, which hadn't been used for a month because Peter was an _idiot_. He swung out to confront Harry, only to falter at the sight of Gwen in his grasp. Harry had flown them high above the street, threatening to send Gwen plummeting to her death. Gwen scowled at him even as he promised to save her—she had never liked Spider-Man—and Harry batted at him like he was nothing but an irritating bee.

Peter wished he could say his memory turned splotchy in the last moments of the battle, like it had with the Vulture. But the ugly truth was that he remembered _everything_ with horrifying clarity. 

Gwen was falling, Harry was screaming, and Peter was sailing after her. He flung out a web to catch her before she hit the ground—

Her spine snapped.

The rest of the fight had been scrubbed from Peter's mind by the overwhelming feeling of the world crashing down around him all at once. Norman, the Vulture, Gwen, _Harry_. It all crested over his head and slammed into him as the world went black around him, excruciating pain lancing through his entire body.

Then everything was just...gone.

Peter woke up in a dirty alley some time later, his mouth full of something bitter, his mind blank, his wrists sore, his chest hollow, and his entire body feeling like it had been shoved through a meat grinder. The suit was loose and ripped, and Peter ripped off the mask so he could breathe.

[Wow, this place smells like shit.]

{Holy fuck, look at you! You're in a mess, aren't cha?}

[Oh, look at that. There's blood on your hands.]

{Gnarly! Who'd you fuck up, huh Petey?}

Peter screamed.

 

•⚔️•

 

Wade was never one to let fear get in his way. Not even of pretentious, British asswipes that liked to torture people for saying his name. Can you say Voldemort 2.0?

But Wade would admit, however reluctantly, that when Francis and his little pyromaniac whore locked him in that oxygen chamber, he was a tiny bit scared. Just a bit.

It felt like _hell_.

His skin felt like fire and his lungs felt full of rocks, his throat just an empty tube that spasmed over nothing, since Wade was being causally _suffocated_.

When Francis and Tits returned after a weekend of frolicking in their field of dicks (Wade assumed) Francis grinned at him like he'd won the fucking lottery. 

"Oh, ugly bastard, aren't you? But see, now that your mutation has manifested, I'm going to leave you in here again. Not because I need to. Because I _want_ to."

Wade didn't think he'd ever hate another human being as much as he hated his father. He was very, very wrong. 

Tits made the mistake of getting close to him when he was feeling murderous, and he head-butted the shit out of her. Match between his teeth, stolen from Tits, Wade let Francis feel like he'd won. He let the dickwad have his last hurrah. 

And then Wade blew the place all to hell.

Feeling like a feral animal, a starving lion in a cheap circus, Wade destroyed anyone he came across with his bare hands. He roared and snapped necks and stabbed whoever he came across on his hunt for Francis. The soul deep rage he felt was something Wade would never forget, no matter how much he might try. He remembered finding Francis, fighting Francis, and Francis almost killing him. But ultimately, Wade's thirst for blood won out over mutated strength. He speared Francis on a rusty pole sticking out of the floor, grabbed his legs, and pulled— _ripped him in fucking half_.

The little slice of hell burned to the ground, and Wade made sure Francis burned with it. 

After, Wade wasn't sure what to do. He ended up wandering until he found himself on Vanessa's doorstep. He didn't think; too dazed by the prior torture and weeks of traveling on foot back to the only thing that felt familiar. So when Vanessa opened the door and screamed, well, he was startled, to say the least. 

Wade's already blackened mood darkened further with every accusation and insult that fell from Vanessa's mouth. The pitiful conversation ended with Vanessa slamming the door in his face and leaving Wade looking lost and angry out on the street.

He wandered for another week, trying to drink himself into a stupor and getting extremely pissed when he realized that he couldn't, and was ready to head back to his old haunt to murder some bitches—new suit and all!—when he came across a star-spangled miracle. 

Captain America, in a back alley, fighting off about twelve seriously creepy dudes in all black. Unable to resist, and feeling giddy for the first time in a long time, Wade jumped into the fray to help. 

Between him and the Captain, they put the baddies down in about three minutes. 

However, given that Wade had killed half of them, Cap wasn't exactly thankful. But he did seem to take a long look at Wade, and as if finding something there that explained everything, his face had softened and he'd asked if he could treat Wade to a drink. And as Wade was never one to pass up free booze, no matter his own cursed metabolism, he accepted.

Wade had no idea how he'd done it, but somehow the Captain had managed to talk him out of going back to Sister Margaret's and instead convinced him to join the merry band of outlawed misfits Cap was toting around these days. Perhaps it was the kind expression on the Captain's face, or the way he spoke, or the fact that one did not simply say no to the man with America's ass, but Wade found himself holed up in a dusty den somewhere remote with the Scarlet Witch, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier, training with them.

The murderous rage Wade felt never truly went away, but during the months of training and working with the good guys, it seemed to dull. He warmed up to Bucky the quickest, and they bonded over past mistakes and drinks that did nothing for them. Next to Cap, Bucky was his favorite.

Sam was wary of Wade, for good reason, but Wanda seemed indifferent, if amused by him. Wade guessed she was like Bucky in that way; she knew what it was like to do things that she regretted.

Everything came to a head after about six months, when Cap got a phone call from Tony Stark, asking for his help. Apparently, a kid of Stark's had gone missing and he was wigging out about it. Enough so that when he called Cap, he must've sounded pretty damn desperate, because the Captain was quick to pack them up and head to the new Avengers building. Cap said it was a temporary team-up, just until they found the kid, but the tension in his face made Wade feel like this little 'mission' of theirs was going to be a lot longer than anyone planned. But the 'temporary' part was all the dick on the hologram phone seemed to care about. Given that Stark was threatening to pull all funding from every branch of government he sponsored if they came after them, there was little holo-dick could do about the reunion of the Avengers.

When Wade learned the kid they were searching for was actually _Spider-Man_ , he may or may not have had a fangirl moment in front of the whole Avengers table. Whoops. But it wasn't like they were taking him seriously at the moment anyway, so Wade's small freakout was dismissed as Wade being Wade. And if he was overly enthusiastic to help, well, who could blame him? It was _Spider-Man_.

But as a month turned into two, and two turned into three, and three turned into six with no sign of the kid, they began to lose hope. Stark had constant shadows beneath his eyes, a glass of whatever type of alcohol in his hands at all times. The Captain had to give him a very stern, patented _Captain America Speech_ before Stark stopped showing up to meetings drunk. Bucky seemed to wilt as well when they had to officially rule Spider-Man as dead. Which sucked all kinds of ass, because Wade had really wanted to meet his idol, and discovering in a short span of time that said idol was a teenager and also probably dead was very not fun.

But what sucked even more was the time Wade walked into Stark's lab on accident to find the man slumped at the desk, drunk out of his mind, muttering, "I lost the kid. I lost the kid. God, it's all my fault, what have I done—"

Wade just backed right the fuck out and fled back to his own room. He wasn't ready to deal with that. He was still dealing with his own ten ton shipwreck of emotional baggage (with lots of help from Bucky and Cap to make sure he didn't murder anybody), he didn't need to witness anyone else's. But...well, it really hammered home the fact that even as one of the good guys, you couldn't save everybody. People still died and it was still on you, because you still felt responsible. 

Having a moral code felt like _shit_ , Wade decided viciously. He'd ranted to Cap about it, about how unfair it all was, feeling childish but in the right as he raved and railed that being good was pointless if it changed _nothing_.

But Cap hadn't steered Wade away from the road to hell with his pretty face. He waited for Wade to finish, then patiently explained that it was intent that mattered, in the end. Bad things were going to happen any way you looked at it, because the world was shit and people were human; they made mistakes. But you could either add to the mess, or you could help the few people trying to pick it up. And maybe, just maybe, you'd have a bit of stable ground to stand on when it was over.

"It's easy to be a bad person. Especially nowadays. But being a good person? Trying to help piece the world back together? Putting others before yourself? _That_ takes guts."

...Damn Cap and those inspirational speeches of his.

Wade spent his days training with Bucky, building a tentative friendship with Barton, who popped by the base more often now that the band had gotten back together, and occasionally going out with Cap and Stark to look for the missing vigilante, even if he'd already been buried by the media.

When another alien invasion happened, the Captain called on him to help. Restless and itching for _something_ to stab, Wade had jumped at the chance.

They were tall, black stick-figure looking things that dropped from a big hole in the sky. But they weren't sentient, so Wade got to enjoy lopping their heads off and kicking them into Stark's little evidence buckets like misshapen, faceless soccer balls. But the big baddie was the main problem; an asshole called the Seeker, or so he called himself. He was searching for something to power his Doomsday machine back on his home planet, so he had rolled up to Earth to steal their planet's core. Obviously, they couldn't have that, so after a badass fight that Wade honestly couldn't remember much of, Wade ended up just hurling his katana at the Seeker once he got close enough (right next to Cap, _swoon_ ) and cutting off his left arm.

Cap was very proud of him for not going for the head.

The Seeker, or Emeriel Johsk, as Fury supplied for them later, was taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody and placed in a secure holding cell, where he was about as dangerous as a newborn baby. 

There were big consequences of Wade chopping a threatening alien man's arm off though, both good and bad. On one hand, he helped save the fucking world, so he got to be a real Avenger now! On the other hand, the public also knew that he was a real Avenger now. And some of them were _not_ happy.

But Wade decided that they didn't matter. The Captain was defending his place, and Stark was backing Cap, so Wade wasn't worried about it. If he ignored the screeches of angry officials on the news, Wade actually felt like things were pretty good. For the first time since Weapon X, he felt like he had a place, a purpose. Maybe not a home, but Wade figured that he didn't deserve one of those anyway after all that he'd done. But he felt almost content.

Wade was happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the splendiferous Pineau_Noir!!!


	2. Blind Al

Peter was _angry_.

He felt like some sort of feral animal half of the time, a constant hunger gnawing at his insides as he stumbled his way through back alleys and into abandoned buildings for a few hours of fitful sleep, before he woke up to his stomach roaring at him, louder than ever. The corpses of squatting homeless people littered the houses he left behind, and Peter felt oddly pleased with it. It lessened the metallic buzz of rage in his mouth to see blood strewn in his wake. The two assholes now residing in his head were the opposite of helpful.

[You're going to starve.]

{There were rats in that house a few blocks back, we could always go back and grab a snack.}

[Like a _rat_ would be enough sustenance. Our stomach is caving in on itself, we'd need to eat a hundred of them just to curb it.]

{I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind eating a hundred rats, as long as we had enough ketchup!}

"That's _disgusting_ ," Peter growled as he crawled his way into yet another decrepit building as the sun went down. "Shut up, both of you. All you ever do is argue over menial bullshit."

[Oh, I'm so sorry that I don't want us to fucking _starve_.] White, as it insisted to be called, snarled.

{I still vote rats for dinner,} The other one—Yellow—chirped, unphased.

[No, lil' Petey's right about that. That's fucking disgusting. We need real food.]

Peter was about to bark out a sarcastic response, but was derailed by the sound of a gun cocking. He whipped his head around and found the barrel of a shotgun directed at his face. His lip curled up and his nose scrunched. "Now look what you did," Peter spat. "We've been snuck up on. We pride ourselves on being unsneak-up-on-able!"

[That's not even a word.]

{Shit, did we lose that bet already?}

[Fuck that—gun. In our face. Priorities!]

{Ooo! That's a ginormous no-no. Let's fuck 'em up!}

"I'm thinking about it," Peter grumbled with a wide blink to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness. A hunched, dark skinned lady wearing sunglasses scowled back at him.

"I don't know who the hell you are, but you best get your crazy asses out of my house. Now." She tilted her head down, but instead of an intimidating glare over the rim of her glasses, Peter saw a film of glazed white over her cornea. 

A little old blind lady, leveling a gun at his face. Like she could actually _shoot_ him. Peter grinned, instinctively dropping into a crouch. He kicked out her legs in one clean swipe, grasped the barrel of the shotgun as she tipped back and angled it away from him as she pulled the trigger. She went down with a loud bang and an angry shout, but before she could gather her bearings, Peter was on top of her. He pinned her arms with his knees and lashed his hand around her throat.

[Crush her fucking windpipe,] White growled. [Teach her to threaten us.]

"Tempting," Peter murmured as he squeezed. Her breathing stuttered, but she maintained her stubborn posture. She was deceptively strong for an old lady. Nothing he couldn't handle, though. Peter leaned down into her face and flicked up her sunglasses with his free hand. "Or you'll what?" He mocked carelessly. 

"I was gonna say I'll shoot your ass up, but seeing as you crushed my damn gun—" Had he really? Peter gave the shotgun a glance to find the barrel twisted beyond repair. Whoops. "I guess I'm fucked." She finished with a heavy frown, more annoyed at the information than scared.

Peter tilted his head and flexed his grip again, contemplative. He needed a place to sleep, to recuperate for the night so that he could be cognizant enough to steal food from the vendors tomorrow without slipping up and getting caught.

[Again, you mean. Kill her already so we can sleep!]

{Wait! She's old!} 

[And?] White snapped impatiently. 

{Aaaand, can't old ladies cook?} 

There was a heavy silence in which both White and Peter contemplated the fact that Yellow had just made a valid argument. Peter felt like Yellow was preening.

{We're stronger than her, and we broke her gun. We could tie her up to make sure there aren't anymore, then make her make us food.}

[... _Then_ we kill her.] White acquiesced moodily. 

Peter's stomach growled. He licked his lips and leaned back to situate the lady's arms next to her sides. One of the pros of his newly acquired mutations, was that he had grown actual spinnerets. He had to work his wrist for a moment before it would generate anything, but after an awkward moment or so, he webbed the lady up and left her there on the floor to root through her things. The scent of gunpowder led Peter to the hall closet, where he found four more guns and a box of ammo. He bent the guns in half and broke the revolver off the lone pistol, then proceeded to crush the entire box of ammo in his fist. A cloud of gray puffed up from the cardboard. Peter sneezed.

Now that Peter was looking, he could tell that someone lived here. There was minimal dust on the floors, the scent of recently opened whiskey, and the crackle of electricity that still worked. It wasn't very sanitary, which was what led Peter to believe it was abandoned, but it was clearly lived in, now that he was paying attention. 

He followed his nose again to the bedroom, where he dug one gun out from beneath the floorboards, two more from beneath the mattress, and the last five from the bedside tables. Once he was satisfied that he'd disarmed the whole apartment, he crawled back into the living room where he'd left the old lady. She was struggling and cursing softly as she tried to claw her way out of his webbing. She stopped when he approached her again, even though he'd made his steps light. 

"Can you cook?" He asked lightly, nothing like the threatening tone he'd been using before.

"If I couldn't I'd be damn well dead by now," She huffed, annoyed. She shifted in her binds again. "What is this stuff?" 

"Lucky you, 'cause I'm starving. So here's what's gonna happen, lady—"

"My name is Al."

"Whatever. I got rid of all your little toy guns," Peter began pleasantly, and Yellow gasped, {Carrie Underwood!} before Peter continued. "So I'm gonna stay here for tonight. If you can provide food in the morning, I let you live."

[Hey, I didn't agree to that,]

"Shut up, White," Peter snarled. "Food is more important. Weren't you just saying that?"

Al tipped her head, her glasses slipping back down to cover her eyes. "Boy, who in the hell are you talking to? I don't hear nobody else but you in here, and I sure as hell ain't white."

Amusement twirled in Peter's chest at her snark, which reminded him of someone that he couldn't place. "Heh, I like you. I really hope you can follow through with our little deal; it'd be a shame to kill you."

She huffed and shifted again. "And how the hell am I supposed to cook if you don't get this shit off me?"

Peter hummed. "Fair point. I'll let you out as soon as I seal off all the doorways and cut out the phone lines," He chirped. "B.R.B!"

He heard her groan and grumble something about useless power bills as he slipped away again. It took him a few minutes to web up the doors, but he liked to think he was getting better at having organic webbing to work with, so he applauded himself for getting it done in less than thirty minutes. Peter retrieved a knife from the kitchen and tested its sharpness on his palm. It sliced through his skin like hot butter, and he watched his hand knit back together in a detached sort of fascination.

Peter knew that he was not the same. Not just the mutations, though he was sure those were big changes as well. But no, _Peter_ was not the same. He remembered the boy who cringed at the sight of blood, who was appalled by the thought of murder, who wasn't so damn hungry all the time. He remembered Spider-Man.

And he wasn't him. Not anymore. 

Something inside of him had hardened, sharpened, until it cut up the rest of him to make way for murderous rage and lilting madness. Peter wasn't stupid, he knew that having voices chattering away in his head was a pretty definitive sign of insanity. But truth be told, Peter couldn't help but feel strangely...apathetic about the whole thing. 

[It's called denial, Petey. Not just a river, you know.]

{I thought it was disassociation? Am I mixing words again?}

[No, he's knee deep in that too.] White allowed.

{Oh, oh, I know! Is it because of H—}

Abruptly, Peter turned the knife and plunged it into his thigh. White and Yellow went quiet. Wild eyes stared at the ground, glazed, as he grit his teeth. " _Don't say his name_." Peter hissed, feeling feral.

There was a suffocating moment where Peter thought Yellow was going to continue out of spite, and he was fully prepared to put the knife through his skull. But it passed, and there was only silence. 

With a heavy chuff, Peter wrenched the knife out of his leg and went back to the living room to free old lady Al, so she could make him food. He waltzed up to her and sliced through his webbing in one firm swipe. Watching Al to make sure that she wasn't going to pull anything, Peter slunk back a few paces to let her stand up. She staggered to her feet, shook her head, and huffed. Then, without waiting for Peter to speak, she began to hobble her way past him and into the kitchen.

"I hope you ain't expecting a five star meal, boy. I got rolls in the cabinet, go get 'em down for me."

 

•🕸️•

 

After a truly tense dinner of instant mashed potatoes, aforementioned rolls, and chicken nuggets, all of which Peter inhaled with gusto, he had made himself a nice nest in the ceiling corner over the TV stand and settled down to sleep. He'd webbed Al down again so she couldn't try to murder him in his sleep, but he had webbed her lying down on top of the bed—a true act of altruism. 

Peter woke up to the sound of slippered feet shuffling across the wooden floor. He watched as Al made her wobbly way across the living, wielding an army knife. He let out a silent chuckle, sleepily tracking her movements as she felt all around the apartment for him. He was too high up for her to reach, and Peter was a master of stealth, so she eventually gave up, confused, and went into the kitchen.

Metal clanged, water ran, and he heard the slight _whoosh_ of a stove igniting. He smelled gas fumes, faint and tainted with rust, and hummed in contemplation. He listened to Al bang around in the kitchen for a while longer, only emerging from his nest when the scent of burning wheat reached his nose.

Dropping to the floor, Peter scrunched up his nose and padded his way on light toes to the kitchen. He leaned on the doorway and smiled as Al stopped for a second, head tilted and brow furrowed, like she was listening for something.

"Well those waffles definitely don't seem five star," Peter chirped, and grinned when Al lept into the air with a loud curse, knocking over the bowl of waffle mix. It shattered when it hit the floor, and batter flew everywhere. "But I'll take it." He dodged the knife thrown at his head and laughed.

"Boy, I thought you bolted!" Al shouted, irritated as she fumbled for another knife. Peter webbed the block out of her reach and she huffed.

"Nope! I recall saying something about not stabby stabbing you if you agree to make me breakfast. Why would I leave before you could make good on your part of the deal?" He asked sweetly, just a hint of threat in his tone. 

Al grumbled something under her breath that Peter was generously going to ignore. She grabbed for the broom and began to sweep the glass shards to one side of the floor, smearing batter over even more of the floor. After a minute or so of Peter entertaining himself by watching her flail, she hissed in frustration and shook the broom in his general direction. "Get over here and make yourself useful. I can't make food if I'm walking on glass."

Rolling his eyes, Peter yanked the broom from her and tossed it into the corner. He squatted down, swept all the shards into his palms, and proceeded to dump them in the trash can. He grabbed the paper towels as the cuts healed so he could mop up the spilled waffle mix. It wouldn't do to have his personal old lady chef slip and snap her neck. Not before the waffles were done at least.

For the next ten minutes, it was surprisingly calm. Al made another bowl of batter while Peter wiped away the evidence of the old one. Soon enough, Al was dumping a tall platter of waffles onto the table as Peter rummaged around her cabinets for syrup. 

"You have Mrs. Butterworth? Hell yes! I thought you were gonna be one of those old people that buy off-brand, sugar free syrup. That shit tastes like molded tree sap, straight off the tree. Nasty. I need my sugar, Blind Lady Al; I'm a growing boy!" Peter babbled as he set the bottle at the table and plopped down in one of the rickety chairs.

"Just Al is fine," She replied dryly as she sat down as well. Then she paused, head tilted. "Say boy, how old are you anyway?"

"Good question," Peter mused as he forked two thirds of the waffle stack onto his plate. He drowned them in syrup as he contemplated the proper response. Time had kind of lost meaning a while ago, so Peter had no idea how long it had been since his innocence had bit it and left him with nothing but rage and a thirst for blood. At least he hadn't lost his sense of humor.

{It _is_ our redeeming feature.} Yellow allowed.

White sighed, but he sounded less irritable than normal. [We don't have any fucking 'redeeming' features. And it's been eight months since Gwen-a-dear took a swan dive and we became her damn straw.]

Yellow gasped, {Gwen-a-dear is _so good_!} He screamed. {Our sense of humor extends to Whitey too! Oh—OH! And I get it; it's a play on 'straw that broke the camel's back'. Ya know, cause Petey broke her spine? Heh. Good one.}

Peter's fingers were digging into the tabletop so hard that it crackled beneath his grip. The fork in his hand had snapped in half. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes for a second. For his own sense of pride, he decided to completely ignore Yellow. "So I'm still fifteen? That doesn't seem right."

[Believe it, Petey. You turn sixteen in two months.]

{We should get a tattoo! You can get tattoos at sixteen in New York, right? We should get a tattoo!}

[Of what? We don't have anything we like enough to stamp on our body forever.]

{Just get a huge dick inked on our back! Then people could say that we're a huge dick and we could say that we actually have a huge dick!}

"Hey!"

[While appropriately insulting for this conversation, may I just say: _no_.]

Peter huffed and stabbed a large chunk of waffle to stuff in his mouth. He gnashed his teeth around it viciously and swallowed. It was burnt. "Fuck you, Yellow. My dick is very proportionate."

{With a dick like that? Please. I could do better.}

"What is that supposed to mean?" Peter demanded.

{I deserve to be fucked properly,} Yellow huffed. {I deserve to be dicked down by a real man!}

[You don't even have a fucking _body_ , you dumbass. Both of us have to live vicariously through Peter if we want any action at all.]

{Petey, go out and find me a nice dick to ride!}

"Find one yourself, you bitch. I'm not riding _shit_."

"Who are you talking to?" Blind Lady Al interrupted abruptly, brow furrowed. She looked much less hostile than before, but Peter wasn't sure why.

"I've got Tom and Jerry fighting over my priorities up in my little noggin. I have to yell at them to put them in the corners," Peter answered easily as he forked another hunk of waffle into his mouth. All of them were burnt at the ends, no softness to be found anywhere. Peter wasn't about to complain though, because one, his mouth was full, and two, the burnt waffles coupled with the weirdly soft expression on Blind Lady Al's (that was way too long of a nickname, he was changing it) face reminded him of someone. Someone that felt like warmth and safety and home. 

Peter inhaled the rest of the terrible waffles and licked the syrup off the plate in relative silence. When he stood to dump his plate in the sink, Blind Al (much better) stood too. She turned her back on him, posture stiff, and walked into the living room. "You can stay here if you want. Just don't break anymore of my shit."

Surprised and a little suspicious, Peter followed after her. He stood in the doorway and watched with shrewd eyes as she shuffled over to the armchair next to the TV stand that didn't actually have a TV on it. She fiddled with the dials of the radio on top of the stand until a crackly channel came through. The news, it sounded like. 

"Why would you let me stay with you?" Peter asked, eyes narrowed. 

[Did she call the cops?] White yelped, alarmed.

{Nah, she couldn't have. This is the ghetto. Cops don't bother down here.}

"And I cut the phone lines, remember?" Peter reminded him.

"It's not like I was using them for much anyway," Blind Al gruffed. "And I don't gotta explain myself to you. Shouldn't you just be glad that I'm offering you a roof over your homeless little head? More food? Now shut up and let me listen to my damn channel."

"Careful, Blind Al," Peter hissed abruptly. "I'm not a stray dog. I don't do rules. Or did you forget that I could twist you into a human pretzel if I wanted?"

"Boy, if you're gonna go around murdering people, you might as well get paid for it," She snapped. Reaching into one of the shelves on the bottom of the stand, she produced a small piece of cardstock. She tossed it at him, "And definitely don't be threatening it to people who're offering you a place to rest your crazy ass."

The card fluttered in mid-air for a moment, before it was snatched between deft fingers. Peter flipped it around and brought it up to his face.

**Sister Margaret's Home For Wayward Girls  
** Loew's 46th Street  
888-000-000  
Ask For Weasel 

"The hell is this?" Peter blurted, eyebrows raised.

"Contact card for a place called Hellhouse. That nunnery school bullshit is just an alias. It's a place where crackheads like you go to get their fix and get paid for it. If I'm gonna be housing you, you gotta earn your keep. Help keep the pantry stocked, especially since you eat like a damn black hole." 

"Growing boy, Blind Al," Peter chirped in reminder as he looked over the card with new interest.

"It's just Al."

Peter ignored her and contemplated his options. On one hand, getting paid for the bodies he left behind would be helpful in the long run. No more empty stomachs, no more constant nerves. It would be nice. On the other hand—

' _I don't want to kill people. I'm not a killer. I'm not! I'm NOT A KILLER—_ '

Well, there was no other hand. All pros!

[Hoo boy,] White muttered. [There's that denial again. You are just hitting it hard today, aren't you?]

{I say we do it! Money means food! Food means no rats!} Yellow said happily. 

[You're the one who suggested eating rats!]

{I was hungry!}

[WE ALL WERE!]

Peter scrunched up his nose at the shouting, then shook his head. He tapped his finger on the name at the bottom in thought. "What's a nice, little, gun-wielding, blind lady like you doing with something like this?"

Blind Al shifted her scowl away from him to the radio. "I got my reasons. It's smart to have a lot of connections if you decide to delve into that side of society."

{Ooo! Like a big _web_!}

[Oh, I like the sound of that. A little nod to our old MO, yeah? Let's use that.]

Peter's lips curled up, eyes glittering darkly. He hummed as he memorised the address on the card. He thought back to the alley where he'd stashed a certain red and blue reminder. "I am _way_ ahead of you."


	3. Weasel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the lovely Pineau_Noir!

It happened one day while Wade was making pancakes for the A-Team. He had decided to forgo his mask so he could see to cook, but it was early enough that nobody in their right mind was up. And well, he just felt...good. Oddly good.

"Tumblin' out of bed and stumblin' to the kitchen, to pour myself a cup of ambition!" Wade sang softly as he flipped the last pancake expertly out of the pan and onto the stack. "Yawn and stretch and try come to life! Jump in the shower and the blood starts—" 

Something dropped on top of his head. Wade yelped and, on instinct, whipped out one of his guns and fired off a round at the ceiling. The bullets were all rubber, but the resounding crack of sound that banged through the house made him freeze, eyes wide. Heavy footsteps hurled down the stairs and skidded into the kitchen. Cap rounded the doorway with wide eyes, "Wade! What's—?"

Wade leapt across the counter for his mask, one hand pressed to the side of his face and the other scrambling desperately for the scrap of leather next to the coffee maker. "Don't look at me."

"Wade?" Cap ventured carefully. He took a tentative step forward. Cap had seen him without his mask once before, but he and Bucky were the only ones that had seen his face. Wade was sure that if Cap had come running, the rest would too, and he wasn't ready to traumatize the world's mightiest heroes with his pizza face. A hand clasped his fumbling arm before it could snag his mask though, and Wade looked up to see Cap beside him, staring at something just above him. "Wade, please," He said again, but he kept his eyes on the top of Wade's head, brow furrowed.

"False alarm," Wade rasped roughly. "Thought I saw a spider. My bad. There's a hole in the ceiling now." 

"I'm sure Tony won't mind," Cap muttered absently. Wade seriously doubted that, as he and Stark weren't exactly best buds, but he kept his mouth shut. For once. "Has...Have you noticed anything, um, different about yourself recently?" His voice was a bit strained, still not looking directly at Wade. 

Wade didn't blame him. He wouldn't want to look at himself either. "Why?" He tried, going for jovial and falling flat. "Is there something on my face?"

Cap's lips pursed. "Not exactly."

Not exactly? What the hell did that mean? 

Before Wade could launch into his favorite game—twenty questions—Cap took the arm he had in his grasp and raised it until it rested on the top of Wade's head. Wade's face fell blank, eyes comically wide at the countertop. 

"...I have hair."

"You have hair," Cap parroted, but with a lighter tone. He smiled down at Wade, "And it might just be my old man eyes, but it looks like the worst of your wounds are gone." 

One hand still clutching the surprisingly soft and surprisingly _there_ hair on his skull, the other hand flew up to feel over his face. It was still rough and uneven and mottled, but the open sores that had once littered most of his face were mostly gone. Wade was stunned. He hadn't even noticed. "What the fu—"

Cap raised his eyebrows.

"Fudge. I was gonna say fudge," Wade promised even as he straightened up to examine himself. Was he...healing? After all this time? _Why?_ Not that he was complaining, of course, but it didn't make any sense. He frowned as he ran his fingertips through his newly regained hair. "I don't understand," He mumbled.

"Maybe you don't have to. Maybe this is the fruits of your labor coming to light." Cap beamed at him and clapped him on the shoulder. 

Wade shot him a doubtful look, but was distracted from replying by the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. A split second of hesitation, and then Wade was reaching for his mask and slipping it over his face just in time for Natasha to come into the kitchen. She looked up at the ceiling, then between Wade and Cap. She raised an eyebrow.

"I saw a spider," Wade responded to her unvoiced question. 

Seeming extremely unimpressed, Natasha just shook her head at both of them, only to perk up a bit at the sight of the monumental stack of pancakes beside the stove. She wandered over and snagged a few and a plate.

Wade took that as a sign to completely ignore what had transpired before and launched himself into his normal chatter. His heart was pounding and his mind was racing with possibilities, but he managed to keep up a cheery front as the rest of the Avengers filed down into the kitchen as well. That was, until Stark came down.

"Did you shoot my fucking ceiling?"

 

•🕸️•

 

Weasel didn't like surprises. He never had, and never would. Whether good surprises or bad surprises, he could just generally do without. And ever since he'd set up Sister Margaret's, any surprise he got tended to be on the bad side. Though, if anyone ever tried to throw him a surprise birthday party, it would be equally alarming, considering Weasel had long since disposed of anything that could trace back to his old self, including his date of birth.

So yeah, Weasel despised surprises. Which was why, when greeted with the sight of a masked man when he clicked on the light in his apartment above the bar, he immediately pulled a gun on him. "Who the hell are you? How did you get in here? Get out."

"Ooo, feisty! We like you already," a voice much younger than Weasel was expecting purred. There was something distinctly familiar about the guy's weird costume, but Weasel brushed it off as the intruder dropped down onto all fours and began to prowl slowly towards him. Only to stop abruptly and spring back onto two feet, a gasp escaping the mask. "I know you! Yes, we do, White. No, not—Shut up! I'm trying to have a conversation." He snarled at nothing, head tilted to the side like he was listening for something.

"Look buddy, you can either get out or I can shoot you. Can't say I have a preference," Weasel said coldly. 

"Hammer!" Was the responding chirp. Weasel stiffened. The masked guy snapped his fingers and made a sound like a vaguely disappointed golfer. "That's who you were. Oh man, when we broke in to your place, I didn't think that the infamous Weasel would be Jack Hammer. It's been what, five years?" His head twitched to the side again. "I _know_ he probably doesn't remember me, you dick, that's the whole point. Stop interrupting," He snapped.

"Take off the mask and I'll see if your face jogs my memory. Better yet, give me a name. Always helps to put a name to a face." 

' _Please,_ ' Weasel thought, irate and uneasy. ' _ **Please** be that stupid._'

There was a moment of silence, and then suddenly Weasel was on his back, pistol a useless twist of metal laying a few feet from his head. The guy was on top of him. Weasel hadn't even seen him move. Up this close, the details of the weird costume were clearer. The entire ensemble was black spandex, narrow semi-circles of red lenses over the eyes and scarlet hourglasses on the palms of clawed hands. But it was the symbol stamped in crimson on the chest that finally made the pieces click together. Weasel's eyes widened. 

"Spider-Man?" 

"Not anymore," Not-Spider-Man sang cheerfully. "See, I was originally just going to have a little chat with you about how to acquire a spot in your little roster, so to speak. Put me on the map. But, well, I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately and I know that a computer whiz like you can help me with another big thing I need done. What do you say, help an old pal out?" He chirped, head tipped like a curious puppy.

"I don't even know who you are. Not to mention the fact that you're currently one hand cramp away from crushing my larynx, which, if you could get off me now, that'd be great." Weasel waited until the lunatic was off him before sitting up. He rubbed his neck and swallowed nervously.

"Right, right. Guess we gotta let you in on the secret anyhow." Thumbs tucked up underneath the hem of the mask and tugged it carefully up over his mouth before pausing. "But just know that if you mention this to anyone, even utter a syllable of my name in any company other than my own, I will tear your spine out of your body and replace it through your throat. Then I'll burn your life's work to the ground." He tapped his knuckles on the wood of the floor, hard enough that it would've been heard in the bar below. The grin on his face was disturbing. "Capiche?"

Weasel didn't trust himself not to shoot back something sarcastic in return, and he rather liked having his organs inside his body, thanks, so he nodded instead. 

The mask was ripped off the rest of the way. "Good! I was worried there for a second that I would have to find another employer."

Big, brown eyes, coffee curls, and freckles scattered across the bridge of a button nose. This—This was a _kid_. An obscenely innocent looking kid. That had just threatened to creatively disembowel him. What the actual _fuck_?

The kid stood up straight and threw his arms out wide with a sharp grin. "I know, you're speechless! I'm just too fantastic."

"What the fuck." Weasel deadpanned.

"So, this thing I need your assistance with," The kid continued as if he hadn't heard. "It's kind of necessary for us to move on to the whole putting me on your paid-serial-killer thing. See, I need you to hop onto the dark web--" Here he paused, tipped his head like he was listening to something, and snickered. "—and erase every trace of me from everywhere. If my name is in my elementary school paper, I want it gone. Think you can do that, pal?" He prodded with a conspiratorial wink.

"...Parker," Weasel said after a moment. The grin on the kid's face solidified into something stony, and he went rigid. Seeing the tension that spread across the kid's shoulders gave Weasel enough bluster to plow forward. "That's your name, isn't it? I _do_ remember you. Dorky little kid in tech club, the only middle schooler in the whole bunch. Didn't you wear glasses?" He was taking a gamble in revealing his hand this early, but Weasel had learned to read people pretty well over the years. 

And he did know the kid; he'd tried to grab Weasel's attention a few times at the beginning of the year, before fading into the background like most newbies did after the first few months. But that kid had been a plucky little thing, not...whatever the hell this lunatic was. 

Doe eyes blinked widely at him. "My name was Peter, actually. Peter Parker." His voice had gone disturbingly hollow, a thousand yard stare directed at Weasel chest, like he could see right through it. After a second of thick silence, the kid—Peter?—shook his head and was back to smiling down at him. A lethal looking pair of fangs glinted at the corners of his mouth. "And you're just proving my point, Jackie! I need every trace of me wiped from the internet. Then I need a list of people I went to school with, who had the same classes as me, or worked under Jameson with me. Anyone who might idly remember my face."

Weasel narrowed his eyes at Parker warily. "And what are you gonna do with that information once I give it to you?"

Parker raised an eyebrow. "Kill them all, of course. Don't try to play coy with me, mister. I know what kind of establishment you run, Jack." He paused once more, did that weird listening tilt again, then smirked. "Yes we do."

"What?" Weasel slowly climbed his way back to his feet again, simultaneously bewildered and very _done_ with how this entire conversation had gone.

"Ugh, I keep forgetting no one can hear you idiots but me," Parker groaned with an eyeroll. He dropped back onto all fours and scuttled forward in a way that had Weasel instinctively flattening his back against the wall. But Parker paused by the ruined pistol just in front of Weasel's sneaker, and picked it up with a hum. He glanced up at Weasel with a sunny smile. "We want in. You know, on your little murderscapades? I'm—" Another pause. "Yeah, okay, that was lame. I could've done better." His nose scrunched up. "That was _awful_ , Yellow. Up your standards for puns. Anyway, as I was saying, after we get this whole virtually killing me thing out of the way, I want you to put me on your contact list for those pretty little golden tickets."

"What's in it for me?" 

Abruptly, Parker was crowding into his space, close enough that Weasel could see a faint scar wrapped all the way around the kid's throat. A gloved hand pressed harshly into Weasel's stomach, and he choked as Parker purred, "You get to keep all your limbs."

"O-Okay— _Okay_! Let up, let up, let up, I'll erase your shit and put you on the board just _fucking stop it hurts_!"

"Awesome!" The brat chirped, then spun away from Weasel in a happy twirl. 

Weasel doubled over with a groan, his insides feeling like prison mashed potatoes. Shitty, bruised, and nauseous. One arm wrapped around his stomach, Weasel pulled his way along the wall towards his computer room. Parker trotted after him, humming a cheery tune under his breath. Weasel wanted to deck him. 

He made it to the computer room without puking, which was a miracle in and of itself. Plopping down into the chair in front of the monitors, Weasel rolled it up closer and began to tap out a few lines on his keyboard. Parker crawled in, _literally_ , and made his way up onto the ceiling to hang down by his feet just behind Weasel, reading over his shoulder. Swallowing, Weasel proceeded to pull up everything on Peter Parker that he could find.

There wasn't much. The earliest mention he could find was an article in an old newspaper stating that little third-grade Peter had won the science fair, then there was nothing until the police report on Benjamin Parker, with the kid's statement. Weasel decided to get the biggest thing out of the way and pulled up all three of Parker's school websites—elementary, middle, and high school, but no college—so he could hack in and delete the name Peter Parker from their rosters. Multitasking, he left the virus software scanning on it's own while he pulled up the Daily Bugle's website. From there, it wasn't hard to change all credits from 'taken by Peter Parker' to 'submitted anonymously'. Parker hummed behind him, and Weasel glanced back at him to see him studying the rapid coding on the screen with interest.

Weasel idly wondered how all the blood wasn't rushing to his head with him being upside down like that. He turned back to the screens, but continued to study Parker out of the corner of his eye. Parker was watching the software wipe him out with absent fascination, edging a bit closer so he could see around Weasel. 

A frown twisted Weasel's lips. He remembered the little kid who had bounded up to him on the first day of school, too small to be there but bouncing enough that he damn near made up for it, so excited to learn and be included. Weasel himself had already made another name for himself outside of school, having been held back twice because he just didn't care enough to try anymore, but still wanting something bigger than himself to work towards. He'd dropped out the year after that because his mother had finally overdosed, the dumb bitch, and no one could force him to go anymore. He'd already conned the bar from it's original owner, so when he disappeared, he had a place to go.

But Parker... he'd said five years? He couldn't have been older than eleven back then, so he couldn't be older than sixteen now. Fucking Christ, what the fuck had _happened_ to the poor kid between now and then? 

A weird feeling was rising in Weasel's chest, and he squirmed, uncomfortable. He didn't know what it was, but he didn't like it. Emotions in general were gross. Unnecessary. They were a waste of time and energy that Weasel could be wasting on something he actually liked. Like gambling. Or drinking. 

But even still, Weasel couldn't help but feel...bad, for the kid. He reminded him of himself a bit.

Yeah, life sucked, shit happened, and crying over it changed fuck-all, but there was something about seeing Parker now, unhinged and gleefully angry, that edged Weasel closer towards the edge of losing his last little bit of faith in humanity. 

"Was."

"What?" Parker said distractedly, reaching out to brush his fingers along the monitor almost reverently. 

"You said that you weren't Spider-Man _anymore_. You said your name _was_ Peter Parker," Weasel listed without turning around, shoulders hunched. He glanced back at Parker with shrewd eyes. "Who are you now?"

At that, Parker's attention snapped from the screen to Weasel, those wide, doe eyes making him cringe. A wild smile split the kid's face, and he backflipped off the ceiling with a laugh. He began to dance around the room again, face bright and eyes dark. "Well, we've given it a fair bit of thought," He started as he swayed to a silent rhythm. "Since Peter Parker is virtually dead, that name might as well be too. And I haven't been Spider-Man for a _long_ while now. But we wanted to preserve that memory, that feeling of freedom that came with anonymity. So, you can call me…" He paused here to twirl in place, arms spread wide and fangs on bright display. Weasel gulped.

"...The _Spider_."


	4. The Spider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit longer than the others but honestly I didn't want to cut it soooo... fuck consistency HERE WE GO.
> 
> Betaed by Pineau_noir :3

Between Blind Al and Weasel, Peter felt like he had kidnapped a good circle of friends.

[It's telling that we had to kidnap them to get them to be friends with us. And I say that with serious doubts that they actually like you.] White drawled.

{Who cares? It's just some light kidnapping! They should be happy that they get to live with our fabulous self!} Yellow preened.

[You're a fucking moron,] White growled. [They're happy they get to _live_ , they don't care about us.]

"And Weasel doesn't live with us. He lives above Sissy's. Honestly, Yellow, pay attention," Peter murmured idly as he fiddled with the innards of his suit. He was pretty proud of it, if he was honest. The black and red were a poignant change from the eye-catching blue, but while Peter would like to subtly give the law the middle finger by slapping a metaphorical neon sign on his ass (catch me if you can!), he really liked the black. 

He'd disassembled his old suit for parts to make himself the new suit. A better suit. The wiring and some of the tech had already been decimated by newly crazy Peter in a frantic, paranoid scrabble to get away. No tracker, no monitoring, no cameras or audio recorders, no Karen. Not that Peter particularly needed those elements for his new suit, of course. He was a creature of the night, a paid poison, a knife in the night.

{Heheh. A knife in a knight, more like.} Yellow giggled hysterically.

Peter could _feel_ White rolling his non-existent eyes. He thumbed through large squares of black spandex with a hum. "We haven't killed anybody on a high enough horse to be considered a knight though."

[...Yet.]

{Yet!}

"Yet," Peter acquiesced with a smirk. "We've only taken five jobs so far, but I think we're making enough of a splash to get our name out there. How long until some other big bad mercenary tries to come haze me, do you think?" he mused.

[I give it another month. Though I _am_ looking forward to disemboweling someone on Weasel's floor.]

{Oh, he would get so mad!} Yellow cackled gleefully.

Peter snickered as he twisted together a few more wires and measured them against the spandex. From across the room, Weasel griped, "Whatever you're scheming--stop. I can feel your shady 'ill-intent' vibes from over here."

{Does he have spidey sense too?} Yellow gasped.

[Everyday, we stray further from God.]

"Who's God in that scenario?" Peter shook his head and leaned back in his chair. "Trust me, Weas, when I have 'ill-intent', it won't just be vibes you're feeling. Feel me?" He purred.

"Rogered loud and clear, crazy bitch," Weasel muttered with a flippant hand wave over his shoulder, not bothering to look back at Peter.

Yellow squealed, {Oh my God!}

[Oh no.]

Peter's eyes widened. "Yellow don't—!"

{OOOOHH YOU'RE CRAZY BITCH, BUT YOU FUCK SO GOOD I'M ON TOP OF IT—} Immediately began to blast through Peter's brain, destroying any and all coherent thought and sending a sharp stab of pain into his skull.

[Make it stop!] White screeched, alarmed.

{WHEN I DREAM—}

But the only way Peter had ever been able to get Yellow to stop singing a song, was to sing along with him, but as off-key as possible. So he immediately began to belt out the lyrics along with Yellow, White's despairing moan quiet in the back of his mind. "I'm doing you all night! Scratch yourself down my back to keep me right on—" Peter screamed. "Hey! You're crazy bitch but you fuck so good I'm top of it!"

Yellow abruptly stopped singing, making a disgruntled noise. {You ruined it!}

[Oh thank God,] White wheezed.

"That was the point, fuckwad. You were making my head hurt," Peter snapped. He rubbed his temples with a growl, his earlier amusement gone.

"For the love of everything right in the fucking world, please _never_ do that again," Weasel said, face pale.

They were currently sitting in the bar below Weasel's apartment, as it was closed during the day, with Peter in one of the booths wrangling another suit into being while Weasel wiped down the bar and restocked their alcohol. Weasel was staring at him now, eyes wide and expression wary.

Weasel was odd in a way that Al was not, in that he didn't constantly ask Peter who he was talking to, or respond to quips that weren't meant for him. He seemed to always just _know_ when Peter was talking to the boxes. Yet he never asked about them.

[Yeah, that's really fucking suspicious.]

{He already knows that we're crazy, though. It makes sense that he wouldn't ask, 'cause he can probably guess.}

"True enough," Peter mumbled as he went back to his suit. It wasn't a perfect copy of his new one, but the upgrades were minor enough that Peter could use both suits alternatively and not be missing out on anything much.

"Holy fucking shit," Weasel suddenly blurted, and Peter turned just in time to see him lunge for the remote underneath the counter and unmute the TV.

"...ewest Avenger that came into play during the fight against the Seeker—"

Peter's head snapped around so quickly that his spine tinged in protest. There, on the grainy screen of the mounted television, were the Avengers. They all stood in a line behind the main podium, like a bunch of school kids waiting to get on the bus. A dark-haired man stepped out of the line and up to the podium as the commentators continued to speculate on the new Avenger.

"They say he goes by Deadpool. Not a very heroic sounding name, but then again neither is Black Widow." The news anchors jibed.

Peter made an affronted noise on his fellow spider's behalf. They zeroed in on the man in red at the end of the line, easily the tallest of them all, and Peter perked up in curiosity.

{Weren't we almost an Avenger?}

[No, we weren't here yet.]

{So why do I feel like they're replacing us!}

[Because you're an idiot. Spidey was never an Avenger--he turned them down. They aren't replacing us, you fucking moron, we're _dead_ to them.]

{Wait, who did we turn down?}

"The Avengers," Peter murmured as he ran his eyes over the new guy, the hunger in his stomach spiking almost painfully. 

{Yeah, but which one did we turn down?} Yellow prodded. Then he gasped. {Oh my God, if you turned down Thor I will literally strangle you.}

[Again, no body, dumbass. Unless you can convince Spidey to strangle himself—]

"Which you can't, because I didn't turn down Thor."

[See? Moot point.]

{What did any of that have to do with cows?} Yellow said, bewildered. 

Peter wanted to facepalm. But he didn't do that, because then it would obscure his view of the TV, and he wasn't done observing Deadpool yet. The man seemed twitchy, like he'd rather be anywhere else but in front of a bunch of cameras. 

The commentators cut out as the man at the podium began to speak. Peter huffed, disgruntled, as the camera moved from Deadpool to focus on the other guy.

Yellow hummed. {Then which Avenger _did_ we turn down?}

[Couldn't have been Cap, obviously, as he was on the run with his little boyfriend when the Vulture happened.]

"I... don't remember," Peter responded after a moment, brows furrowed in confusion. He could remember being asked to join, and he could remember saying no. But there was a face in that memory that was blurred out, like someone had scribbled over it with pencil and then tried to erase it. There were a lot of Peter's memories that we're like that, actually. Faces and names just gone, smudged away, like remembering them would make him crazier than he already was.

[That would be a fucking feat of awe,] White drawled, covering up his own discontent with sarcasm.

Peter zoned back into the TV just as the man at the podium began to speak. "Due to recent, tragic events, there has been an alliance made between those of us who have signed the Accords, and those who have decided to decline. How long this alliance will last is currently unknown, but for now, it is for the foreseeable future. As long as the world needs us--any of us--we'll be there."

That _voice_ , and that face. What was—

_And I wanted you to be better._

Peter shrieked as pain lanced through his skull, a hundred times stronger than when Yellow had been singing his lungs out, and he clawed at his hair trying to relieve the pressure building up in his brain.

_No, this is where you zip it!_

_And if people had died tonight? That's on you._

_That's you, right? The Spider-Boy._

"STOP!" Peter screamed, drawing blood as he scrabbled at his skull. With an anguished cry, he wrenched himself up to look towards Weasel, who had gone paper white again. "Change it! Change it _now_!" He seethed, eyes wild and looking every part of deranged with blood dripping down the sides of his face and fangs on display.

Weasel made a strangled noise and fumbled the remote for a second. The sounds on the screen seemed to grow louder.

"Mr. Stark, what is the—"

_Mr. Stark!_

_Mr. Stark?_

_'I failed...I failed, I messed up so bad, I failed, I failed, I—'_

Peter's entire body spasmed as a familiar, scared little voice began to chant in the back of his head. His forehead knocked into the table and he screamed, digging his hands into his chest as if he could reach in and pull that _weak little shit out_.

[What the fuck is happening?] White blurted, sounding scared and God, wasn't _that_ a laugh? [Oh shit. Oh—Spidey, Yellow's offline. I can't help you with this, you need to focus on turning the TV off!]

"Turn it OFF!" Peter screeched, unable to lift his head this time. He heard Weasel yelp and then the crackle of the television sputtering off. The static and shouts of 'Mr. Stark!' cut out, and the close up on that damn _face_ swirled to black. The bar was silent, save for Peter's panting.

"Spider?" Weasel ventured after a moment, almost concerned. There was a shuffling sound, like he was rounding the bar, but Peter held up a hand.

"If you come over here right now," he rasped, "I cannot promise that I won't dismember you."

He heard Weasel hastily edge back around the side of the bar and warily continue to clean. Peter managed to pry his hands away from his blood matted hair after a minute, and White huffed. [Jesus fucking Christ,] he whispered.

{And it couldn't have been—whoa. What happened? Did we lose time again?}

[Just you this time, buddy,] White replied wryly, but it was strained.

{Holy shit, what happened? That's the first time that Whitey's addressed me as something other than 'dumbass'!}

[Don't push it, dumbass.]

"Who the hell was that?" Peter croaked, teeth gritted together painfully.

"T-Tony Stark," Came Weasel's uncertain voice. 

Bitterness flooded Peter's mouth and he snarled at the table, abruptly incensed. The name struck something deep in his chest hard enough that it _ached_ , just like when the month of May rolled around, or when anybody with the name Ted or Fred or anything remotely rhyming with it entered the bar. Except this was worse. There was a sharpness to the ache that reminded Peter of H—

{Tony?}

[ _Stark_.] White seethed. He seemed to hitch a ride on Peter's mounting rage until he was near vibrating with their combined fury.

"Never again," Peter growled vehemently. " _Never_."

"What?" Weasel seemed shaken enough that Peter's earlier statement about him not responding to things that were meant for the boxes became redundant.

"I said who was that guy at the end," Peter chirped easily as he jerked back upright, scowl gone in place of a brilliant smile.

Curiously enough, Weasel's face twisted into a scowl. Peter perked up in interest.

{Gasp! Backstory time?}

"Did you just say gasp?"

[I would be excited, if I actually fucking cared about him.]

{You're so mean,} Yellow complained.

"Another 'old pal' of mine," Weasel spat as he scrubbed at the bartop with increased vigor. "Who apparently abandoned me for the fucking goodie-two-shoes-team. Fucking _Wade_." He seethed.

"Mm, you're not normally this emotive this early in the morning," Peter mused as he propped his cheek on his fist. Blood smeared down across his jaw. "Spill your secrets, Gandalf!" Peter declared.

{Why does he get to be Gandalf?}

[I'm with Yellow, even by our standards that didn't make sense. He's more of a Smeagol.]

{Precioussssss,} Yellow hissed in a surprisingly good impression of Gollum, before bursting into giggles right after.

"Ah, he's not _that_ slimy. Not slimier than us anyway. We get paid to turn people inside out with our bare hands; he gets paid to hand me a piece of plastic with some poor jackass's name on it," Peter dismissed with a flippant swirl of his hand to the side before focusing back on Weasel.

As if waiting for Peter's little tirade to be over (all while looking decidedly unimpressed), Weasel sighed and inclined his head. "The asshole used to be a merc, before he started panting after the Stars and Stripes. One of my best. I actually liked the bastard, you know? Then he had to go and get cancer and sign up for some shady 'research' shit to try and get cured for his little girlfriend. I haven't seen him since. Until just now."

The venom in Weasel's voice made it clear to Peter that Weasel had considered Wade a friend, no matter his bitter demeanor. It made Peter grin. "Aw, you sad that you're boyfriend left you for Captain Amerciscle? I mean, I don't blame you--I would be too if I had that much raw muscle wrapped in leather on a leash." He purred salaciously.

{God, he was _ripped_. And I thought _our_ suit was tight! I wish we could've gotten a peak at that ass.}

[You're both idiots,] White huffed, but it lacked it's normal bite. The earlier episode seemed to have exhausted him. [We didn't even see his face!]

"Didn't need to, Whitey, those pecs were show enough."

Weasel made a disgusted noise that was closely followed by White. Peter burst out laughing as he imagined Weasel's appalled expression on White. "I don't swing that way, Spider. Hell, I think I'd be better off not knowing that _you_ do."

The grin dropped off Peter's face like butter on a hot stove. "You got a problem with how I swing things, Weasel?"

The dark look on Peter's face made Weasel falter, but only for a moment. He scoffed. "I don't care what things you swing, Spider, as long as you don't swing them at me. Knowing you, you'd bring some other psycho in here and they'll destroy my bar. Crazy loves company, and I don't want that company in my fucking house."

"Well," Peter said as he stepped out of the booth and hefted the wired spandex over his shoulder. "Then I'll take me and my crazy outta your house and over to mine. I've gotta sew these up anyway."

[You mean make Blind Al sew them up.]

"That I do. White will take 'Stating The Obvious' for two hundred, please!" Peter cackled as he launched himself onto the ceiling of the bar and crawled his way over to the window. He tugged his mask over his bloody hair and secured it around his neck. He peeked back at Weasel to find him staring after Peter with an unreadable expression. Peter didn't like it. "Au revoir, Weas! Feel free to scream 'say my name!' into a cobweb if you need me," Peter chirped as he put his foot through the window. He giggled wildly as the odd expression vanished from Weasel's face in place of outrage, then swung out and away before the shattering of glass stopped blanketing Weasel's yelling.

 

•🕸️•

 

"So, let me get this straight."

[That's gonna be hard.]

{Heh. You said hard. Like my di--}

"This one guy hires me to gut this other guy," Peter continued as if he hadn't heard. "Because he has some high level drugs down up in here?" He gestured with his kerambit (a lovely red a blue pair with the pretty colors reflecting off the blades that he'd stolen from a Walmart, knowing damn well he could've paid for them if he wanted) to the mess of dismembered human nailed to the wall. Amid the viscera of mutilated lungs, a dissected stomach, and intestines that Peter had strung up like decorative lights in the shape of a smiley face, there were three good sized baggies filled with what Peter could only guess was crystal meth.

"And he expects me _not_ to steal them? White, how much is this asshole paying me?" Peter demanded harshly, brow furrowed.

[Around 80,000 dollars.]

{Plus tax!}

[No, I don't think that's how that works.]

"I'm stealing it," Peter declared as he gathered up the baggies, which were still dripping with blood, gristle, and that oddly fascinating purple substance that coated most organs. He shook them off then tucked them into the pocket on his chest, which doubled as his insignia. "I don't even know how much this stuff is worth, but _fuck_ that number. Why'd we even take this job?" Peter complained as he climbed out of the poor drug mule's bedroom and made his way back to Blind Al's to clean up before he headed back to Weasel's to collect his payment. 

[Pretty sure this dude used to work for Stark. We've been on a bit of a killing spree in that respect since we saw that news broadcast last week.]

Peter paused. "Well. Mystery solved. Fuck that guy. By the way, would you happen to know how much meth is worth? I'm pretty sure this stuff is pure."

[If you don't know, how the fuck could I?]

{I bet that cute guy we met in Tennessee on our last out-of-town hit would know!}

Before either White or Peter could cut a scathing reply, a person abruptly appeared in his peripheral vision, much too close for his spider sense to not have picked them up earlier.

"Not exactly," A voice chimed from the end of the alleyway. "Though I'm sure I don't want to know where you got it."

"From the eviscerated stomach of a very poor, very stupid man," Peter replied, just to be contrary. He tipped his head. "Wanna step out of the shadows there, creeper? Or am I gonna have to slice first and ask questions later? Or, you know what, why don't we do both!" An invisible, sadistic grin twisted Peter's lips as he cocked his arm back for a throw.

"I'm an ally!" A man stepped out of the shadows, hands up and eyes wide. He was dressed in all black, with chestnut brown hair and green eyes to boot. "I think we can help each other."

"I'll decide that, Twinkle Toes." Peter scanned the alley as he crawled closer, but there was only one other person that he could sense. The man was alone. "What would you be helping me with? Better yet, how the hell did you find me?"

The man smiled, an expression that set Peter's senses alight. Something was...not right.

"My name is Quentin Beck. And I want to put Tony Stark in the ground."

 

•⚔️•

 

Wade woke up to the sound of yelling. It sounded like Cap and Stark were going at it again over not being able to find Spider-Man. It was becoming more and more common these days, what with old wounds resurfacing in the face of continuous failure.

Rolling over, Wade pulled his pillow over his face and groaned. He briefly considered smothering himself, but there wasn't anything behind it other than the desire to go back to sleep. 

He had gotten better over the past few months, especially since Cap had pointed out that he was healing. Some days were worse than others, and his skin seemed to follow his mood until a vicious cycle of self-deprecation and worsening scars started to drag him down even further. Most times Bucky sought him out and just...sat with him. Didn't say anything really, but sat there in his presence without flinching when Wade was too tired to bother with his mask. Bucky struggled with English some days, and would mutter things in Russian that Wade was pretty sure were platitudes, but it was the thought that counted.

" _Ne odin,_ " Was the most common one. The one that Bucky would rasp out even on days where he had trouble speaking at all. " _Ne odin._ "

Another shout dragged Wade's attention from his idle musings and back to the present. He whined into the pillow then rolled over to swing his feet over the side of the bed. Wade was a heavy sleeper, so if they had been at it long enough to wake him, everyone else had to have fled the scene already. That meant it was up to Wade to put a stop to the bickering before anyone said anything too damaging to be taken back. 

It had only been six months since Wade had been announced as an official Avenger (score!), but he already felt like part of the family. 

Mostly because Captain Mom and Iron Dad fought like an old married couple. 

Wade imagined that it wasn't as bad before the divorce where Cap took half the kids and Stark adopted two more in their absence, but he wouldn't know. He'd only been in one serious relationship and they all saw how well that went. 'Nessa the Loch Ness Fucking (fudging, Cap, sorry) Monster.

As he pulled on a shirt and his mask (because Stark had never seen him without it and Wade didn't plan on letting him anytime soon) he hopped up and meandered to the door. Words began to form as the door creaked open.

"What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It means that you're letting this search consume you, Tony. It's not healthy. You keep going like this and you're going to burn yourself out. Then you won't be any help to anyone."

"So you're saying that this is my fault? Huh? I'm not the only Avenger here, _Captain_. Where were you? _Where were you?_ "

Wade had a feeling that the last question went a lot deeper than he wanted to know. He burst into the living room and gave the raving pair a half-assed wave. "Probably in bed, like all is normal human beings at," Wade checked his non-existent watch as he judged his body clock. "Five in the morning. What're we talking about?"

Stark scoffed at him, but his hackles seemed to fall. He looked keyed up to deck Cap when Wade came in, while the man himself had been holding a calm, yet stern pose. It was always infuriating to argue with someone that wasn't as pissed off as you were.

"I don't think we can count you as normal, Wilson. Hell, you're hardly human—"

"Tony!" came Cap's sharp reprimand, almost appalled.

"Oh yeah, I forgot that you only care about someone when they've murdered people. Cause fuck the innocents, right? As long as you get to feel good about yourself with your little charity cases—"

Cap's face began to blacken into something stormy, and Wade knew that the next words out of either of their mouths would be a step too far. So Wade did what he did best. He started talking.

"Hey, guys, yeah, hi, I'm still here. Ex-murderer, yada yada, I'll cry myself to sleep later. But is anyone gonna answer my question?" 

With a faintly constipated look on his face, Stark turned, shoulders stiff, and waved his hand at the wall. A holographic screen shimmered into being, and Wade sucked in a sharp breath. A snapshot from the news that had aired just an hour before displayed a gruesome sight hanging in the middle of Times Square. 

"Natasha went to look into it earlier this morning. Fury has no idea who the culprit could be, and he wants this mystery solved as quickly and as quietly as possible. But," Cap explained with a narrow glance at Stark that was loaded with more than Wade wanted to interpret. "Tony thinks that it could be one of his old enemies."

"People that used to work for Stark Industries have been turning up dead, and more that were still actively working for the company have gone missing. It's been happening for months." Stark's voice was hard, angry. His shoulders were hunched in, as if to make himself smaller.

Wade blinked in realization. "And you didn't notice, because you were looking for Spider-Man."

Stark whirled on him, like he was fully prepared to throw down, but Wade held his hands up in surrender. Christ, it wasn't like he'd said it in accusation (though Wade suspected that's where he and Cap differed), it was just an observation. An acknowledgement that Wade knew damn well why Stark was getting so defensive over this.

Wade knew what blaming yourself looked like.

He looked at the picture again and grimaced. It was a picture of a man dressed in what looked like a dark green bodysuit, hung between buildings with a silvery rope. His jaw was cracked wide, eyes open and glassy, chin covered in rusty blood. His tongue had been ripped out and stapled to his chest like a tie. Beneath it, written in blood, was the word ' _ **SILVERTONGUE**_ '.

"Did he work for you?" Wade asked as he tipped his head at the screen.

"He used to," Stark answered gruffly. "Sold his tech to me, then got pissed about the way I was using it and caused a big scene. I had to let him go. His name was Beck." He flapped his hand at the small print of the banners running beneath the photo. 

"Regardless, we need to figure out who's targeting your employees, and why," Cap said, arms crossed.

"Spin a wheel, draw a name out of a hat, throw a dart from a plane anywhere above New York and you'll hit somebody who has a vendetta against me," Stark replied dryly. "Our best bet is to let Romanov follow her leads on this. If she even has any." The last part was mumbled under his breath, but it was early enough that you could hear a pin drop in the next room, so both of them heard it.

"I'd be surprised if she didn't. The woman's got her fingers in hundreds of pies. If anyone could find your mystery murderer, it would be Nat," Wade mused.

Then, as if summoned, F.R.I.D.A.Y. chimed in, "Boss, Agent Romanov is calling."

Stark blinked, then smoothed his expression back over. "Put her up on screen, Fri. Anything she sends needs to be priority numero uno--goes right here." He gestured widely to the display screen currently housing Beck's corpse. The photo disappeared and Nat's face popped up in its place. "Well, Agent, I would have thought you'd call Fury first. What've you got?"

"Normally I would," Nat began, tone wry. "But then you sent me that list of other potential victims. Don't think I didn't notice that pattern, Tony."

"Hey Nat! You're a darn sight better than a dead body," Wade chirped, poking his head into view. 

"Thanks Wade." Her lips twitched in a phantom of a smile, before she turned her attention back to Stark. "I figured you wouldn't want to hear this from Fury, but—Tony, you're not going to like this," She warned.

"I kind of figured that out, thanks," came the sarcastic reply, but Stark's brow furrowed. "Send me what you have."

Nat pursed her lips, but fiddled with something out of sight for a moment before a file popped up on the screen next to her. Stark reached forward and slung it to the side to expand it. Several photos, some grainy and some up close, flew out over the secondary screen, and Wade had to squint for a moment to figure out what he was looking at. His eyes widened. "Holy—" Cap glared at him. "Shiz."

Stark had gone rigid. 

Cap stepped forward to study the photos with shrewd eyes. His jaw set. "Natasha, what is this?"

"He's a mercenary," she explained. Wade jolted. "I had the misfortune of running into him earlier. A total nutcase, looks like, but he's pretty dangerous. Gave me a run for my money, and I don't think he was actually trying to kill me," Nat drawled, but it was clear she was troubled. Well, Wade would be too, but he was still reeling from the fact that she'd not only managed to find the guy in the span of an hour, but also had an altercation with him and yet she'd walked away unscathed. Natasha Romanov was the most badass person Wade had ever had the pleasure of befriending.

"Who is he? Did you get a name?" Cap demanded.

Green eyes flicked to Stark, hesitant, but ultimately looked back to the Captain. "No name; no one's seen his face. But he has a title." Another glance at Stark. "They're calling him the Spider."

"Uh, Stark? You okay there, buddy?" Wade ventured warily as the man started to almost vibrate. 

All eyes turned to Stark, who's hands had fisted, white-knuckled, at his sides. A snarl twisted his mouth into something ugly, and his eyes were dark, almost _black_ with rage. Stark looked ready to take on the world with his bare hands.

Furious, dark eyes zeroed in on the crimson symbol emblazoned on the mimic's costume. "Whoever they are, I'm going to fucking kill them."


	5. Hawkeye

"Tony, sit down."

"I'm going, and you can't stop me."

"Stark, sit your ass down," Fury barked. "You're not going. You're compromised."

"I'd like to see you stop me, One Eyed Willy."

"Tony, _please_ ," Cap pleaded, shadows under his eyes almost as bad as Stark's. "Be reasonable. I know you're angry—so am I. But we can't rush into this. We don't know anything about the man."

"I don't need to know anything other than _if he bleeds_ ," Stark seethed. "A repulsor blast to the face takes out just about anybody."

"Except me," Wade piped up, just to be included.

"Shut up, Wilson!" Stark snapped.

"Wade's got a point though," Nat drawled from where she was sitting beside Barton. She had her boots propped up on the table, picking at her nails as she leaned the back of her chair into Barton's shoulder. "This guy is probably a mutant. Experimented on too, if I'm reading that insanity correctly."

Rhodey snorted and crossed his arms. "Oh boo hoo. That's no reason to go around murdering people."

Wade's jaw clenched.

Barton ignored Rhodey and glanced at Nat. "So we're dealing with a mutant then?"

"Possibly. He was stronger than he seemed to be, anyway. And faster." She frowned down at her nails, brow furrowed. "But there are about four people at this table who that could apply to, so we're ultimately still in the dark," she continued as she abandoned her nails and lolled her head back onto Barton's shoulder too.

"You said he's a mercenary, right?" Wade blurted out, cutting off whatever angry retort Stark was gearing up for. All eyes at the table turned to him, and he swallowed. "Why don't I go? That used to be my crowd, and there's not a lot of people that know what Deadpool's name is. The people that do—maybe I can call in some old favors? Get you some eyes on the inside?" He suggested, even as he doubted the truth of his words. If anybody did get wind of the fact that Wade Wilson was the newest Avenger, they were likely to be _pissed_ , not helpful. But Wade...he just wanted to help, and in this situation, this was the only way he knew how.

Surprisingly, it was Cap that protested, not Stark. "I don't think that's a good idea, Wade. Your name isn't exactly a secret, even if we didn't announce it. Given your condition, I don't think you would be the best choice for a stealth mission."

That was a nice way of putting it. Wade knew Cap could've just been blunt about it and said, "Your face is so disturbing that it makes small children cry and makes you stick out like a sore thumb so you can't do recon."

But the Captain had always been nice like that.

Wade reached up to scratch at the skin of his neck, which was suddenly itchy. The whorls of scars there were more cluttered than before.

Under the table, Wade felt the toe of a familiar steel-toed boot nudged his shin. Flicking his eyes up, he caught Bucky's downturned gaze. The ex-assassin gave him a small nod, as if he could read Wade's mind. Wade looked away.

Instead, his eyes caught Barton, who was looking between the two of them with an odd, almost _understanding_ look on his face. Nat wasn't looking at any of them, though she did grumble when Barton jostled her by leaning forward. "What about me, then? I am super stealth."

"Agent Romanov—" Fury started, just to be cut off by Barton.

"Is as compromised as DP and Stark. The Spider already met her once, and any self-respecting mercenary logs faces and posture. We need to send somebody that he's never met before, isn't going to be recognized, and can keep a cool head."

"Ha! If you think I'm letting you go without me, Barton—" Stark began.

"What? What will you do, Iron Man?" Barton challenged with narrowed eyes. "You can't go in there and shoot him before we know all the facts, and just by how you've been acting for the past five minutes, I can tell that that's _exactly_ what you'll do if you get in the same room as him. And you can't. So suck it up and pull your head out of your ass, Tony. You're not going."

There was a long, tense minute where Stark looked about two seconds away from exploding. Then, like a marionette with its strings cut, Stark collapsed into the chair next to Cap and buried his face in his hands. Cap tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Stark recoiled and hissed a vehement, "Don't touch me." Before letting his head hit the table.

Barton's wired posture relaxed some, and he sighed. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he looked to the heavens as if they would grant him his virtues. "Look, I get it, okay? This kid of yours goes missing, and then some psycho shows up and starts slandering the kid's legacy. It's pissing you off. I _get_ it. But every time emotion gets involved in stuff like this—every time revenge starts overriding reason—we end up losing more than we would've gained."

If Barton was expecting some sort of strong reaction from his little speech, he was disappointed. All Stark did was grunt noncommittally and folded his arms around his head.

Well, it certainly wasn't one of Cap's, but Wade thought that as speeches went, that it was pretty good. Valiant, even!

"So it's settled, then?" Sam chimed in. Rhodey shot him a dirty look, which Sam matched easily with one of his own. "Clint's going to scope out the competition?"

"If nobody else that's competent enough to keep a lid on their sensitive little feelings wants to speak up," Fury gruffed, obviously irritated by the whole conversation. Pointedly, he looked at Cap.

"Nope," Cap mused, popping the consonants. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair with a far too innocent look on his face. "My little feelings are far too sensitive, Director Fury. I am most definitely compromised. I think I need a coloring book just to deal with all the stress."

"He might even throw a swear word at someone. We wouldn't want that," Bucky mumbled with a slight uptick to his lips.

From his place keeled over the table, Stark made a vaguely amused choking noise. Even Nat, from what he could see of her face, was smirking a little.

Fury looked murderous.

Wade chuckled under his breath, a warm feeling set in his chest. Barton stood up then, a sigh on his lips. Nat made an offended noise as she was forced to sit up. He popped his back for show and rolled his shoulders as he took up his quiver. "Welp, I better get rolling. The sooner we find this bastard, the sooner we can figure out how to nerf him."

"Nerf or nothing," Wade chirped, and grinned when Barton laughed at him.

"I know what I'm getting Clint for Christmas now," Sam chimed in, eyes alight with mischief.

"I prefer paintball guns," Barton called over his shoulder as he headed for the elevator. He hit the button and threw a sharp smile over at Wade, who blinked in surprise. "I like to see who has the better aim."

With that invitation (if one could even call it that) Barton stepped into the elevator and went off to find the Spider.

 

 

·🕸·

 

 

Weasel was leveling him with a narrow look over the monitor of a clunky, age old computer he kept behind the bar. "You're moping."

"I am not _moping_ ," Peter hissed as he nursed a glass of orange juice and picked through a packet of Gushers. "I'm brooding. There's a difference."

[Not really.]

{Unless you're Batman!}

"Do I _look_ like Batman?"

{Hell no. We're definitely more of a Catwoman.}

[You're both fucking wrong, because this is not DC. Jesus Christ—]

{THE LORD HAS COME, GLORY TO—}

[—I am truly the only fucking brain cell we have left, aren't I?]

"It has something to do with that Beck guy, right?"

 _Damn_ it. Weasel was just too perceptive sometimes. Peter hated it.

Peter snarled at Weasel over the rim of his glass and let his hair fall to cover his face. "He's dead now."

Weasel snorted and rolled his eyes. "No shit, Sherlock. I watch the news, you know. I know you killed him dead, Spider, and I don't give a fuck that you hung a man from Times Square. What I wanna know, is _why_."

{That's a good question, actually. Why did we kill him?}

[We kill a lot of people, dickwad. Beck wasn't special or anything. He stepped out of line and we ended him. End of story.]

{But we don't normally kill people like that. Not so publicly, anyway. I don't even remember what he did.}

Peter slammed his hands down on the bar, crushing the glass of juice beneath his palms. "Because you weren't there!" He roared. Glass bit into his hands, but couldn't push past the clawed gloves of his suit. "Because every time something like that happens, you disappear and leave me with _White_ , who is absolute shit at keeping it together when things go sideways! Beck betrayed me, so I turned his insides into his outsides and made an example out of him."

[You also put a target on our ass] White snarked, apparently done with his whining.

{Oh, is that why Black Widow tried to corner us in an alleyway yesterday?} Yellow hummed, curious. {I always thought that it was because spiders can seek out other spiders. I thought it was a spider thing.}

[You're a fucking moron. Unlike us, Miss Muffet doesn't actually have anything in common with a spider. She's just a normal person.]

{That just makes her ten times cooler!}

Weasel cleared his throat. "Okay, uh, look Spider. I know that you got some sort of fucked up party going on in your head, but could you maybe explain that for someone who doesn't have a front row seat to your mental shitshow?" Weasel hedged, that odd look on his face again.

Peter bristled at it, hackles raised. He didn't like that look.

"What did the douche nozzle do to get you to go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? You know, more than normal."

He could feel Yellow gearing up for a smartass remark, maybe even a nineties reference, or maybe just a {Heh, douche nozzle}, but before he could, Peter's entire mind slid down into a spiral.

 

_—darkness_

_no, not darkness, **blindness** —_

_everything is green, green, green—_

_familiar laughter in his ear, echoing with the betrayer of the past along with the one of the present—_

_metal against his skin—_

_life stretching on like a dismal desert, as far as the eye could see—_

_hands touching him, touching him, **touching him** —_

_blond hair—_

_Stop._

_blue eyes—_

_Stop._

_a predator's grin..._

_**NO—** _

_"Hey Pete."_

 

Peter came back to himself with a shake of his head. His fingers had pressed deep grooves into the lacquer of the bar. He dragged his tongue along the backs of his teeth, mouth abruptly dry.

{...Oh.}

[Yeah,] White gritted out, stiff. [Fucking 'oh'.]

"He pretended to be somebody he wasn't, then stole something from me," Peter ground out, tone dark and thin. Weasel's eyes were wide. "So I ripped out his lying tongue and exposed him for the fraud he was. And it will never. _Ever_. Happen again," He swore.

[Hypocrite,] White sneered. [You're such a piece of shit. You gonna lie again, huh Spidey? You gonna chant 'never again' to yourself like it's supposed to mean something? When the truth is—despite everything that's happened, despite the monster you've become—you're just as fucking weak as you were when you fell the first time.]

{But we have more powers now!} Yellow protested.

[And it didn't make one bit of damn difference, because he didn't use any of them!] White shouted, furious.

"I couldn't even _see_ him, you asshole!" Peter snarled back. "He got the drop on me. That stupid drug made it impossible to locate him!"

[Excuses, excuses, _Peter_ ,] White spat.

{But we still got him, didn't we?} Yellow piped up hesitantly. {He's dead now. In the end, it was us who won.}

Peter barked out a laugh, caustic and flinty. "Oh, but didn't he tell you? White doesn't give a shit about Mysterio. No no, that's not what this is about at all. So why don't you go ahead and explain it to him, Whitey; what's got you all worked up?"

White was silent, his angry presence in Peter's mind dark and menacing enough that not even Yellow was going to brave it.

Peter bared his teeth at the ceiling. "That's what I thought, _bitch_."

He dumped the rest of the Gushers into his mouth and snapped his gaze to Weasel, who jumped. Peter watched the man's Adam's apple bob nervously, suddenly hungry. "You, uh," Weasel stopped, made a face, and tried again. "A-Anything I can do to help?"

The offer sounded like it pulled teeth, ripped out tonsils, and cut out tongues. But for however much Weasel was emotionally constipated, there was no hitch in his tone. His question was...genuine.

It made Peter _sick_.

Flashing his fangs at Weasel, Peter gulped down the rest of his fruit snacks and practically crawled over the counter, just to send the rodent skittering back. Peter grinned. "Give me the gold, Weas. I want to make someone _bleed_."

 

 

·🕸·

 

 

When Peter returned to Sister Margaret's five hours later, the bar was in full swing. He didn't go in the front door, because doors were for _losers_. Instead, he broke the lock off the window to Weasel's apartment and crawled inside that way. Making his way down the staircase, Peter hummed along with the song playing underneath the loud swears and bangs of the usual crowd and slipped into the throng at the base of the stairs. When they took notice of him, thieves, politicians, and mercs alike parted before him like the Red Sea.

A pleased hum sang quietly in the back of his throat as he swayed his way towards the bar. His mood was lifted astronomically from before, now that he had some blood on his hands and a good amount of cash coming at him in the near future.

Weasel's voice carried to him then, annoyed and a little sadistic in a way that Peter knew he only got when Weasel could tell that someone was fishing for info and trying to use him to do it. _Without_ paying him.

"—were you, I'd shut the fuck up before you get dismembered in about—" Weasel paused as Peter came into his line of sight, smirked, and continued, "Oh, thirty seconds or so."

"I feel like you're underestimating me, Weas," Peter sang as he waltzed up to the bar and tossed himself carelessly onto the top of it. He tugged up his mask a bit so he could reach over and grab some peanuts from behind the bar to toss into his mouth. He grinned at Weasel, who glared back. "And we both know how bad of an idea that is," Peter drawled as he turned his gaze into the subject of Weasel's irritation, grin gone too wide. " _Don't we?_ "

The guy was dressed in a dark purple hoodie, hood pulled up to shield his face. That wasn't uncommon for Sissy's, but what caught Peter's attention were the twin buzzes of quiet electricity he could hear on either side of the guy's head. 

{A wire?} Yellow mused languidly, half-hearted. He always seemed tired after Peter's killing sprees.

White, on the other hand, was practically purring with pleasure, earlier fury gone. [Comms, probably. A very, very stupid cop.]

{Or a spy,} Yellow mumbled, dopey. 

"In both ears?" Peter hummed curiously. The man's head tipped, hands tightening around his beer, and Peter's eyes shot to his hands. Corded, veined, calloused roughly on the pads of his first two fingers. It clicked. 

Peter could've cackled. As it was, he choked out a hysterical scoff. 

"Well, well, well! You've got some balls to walk in here unarmed, Feather Face. You looking to get killed? I didn't take you for suicidal, but then again, your girlfriend did try to corner me yesterday, so you're probably not the smartest bunch. Obviously people who throw themselves at murderous aliens and demon warlords on a weekly basis don't have the highest sense of self-preservation, but honestly, it's like you're not even _trying_."

Hawkeye tensed as a few people in the crowd began to stare. Cover blown, he clenched his jaw and set his beer aside. "I was looking for you, actually. Your rat here wouldn't squeal; I thought I might have to get down and dirty."

Peter gasped theatrically and flourished a hand to his chest. "Moi? You were looking for me?"

{Hello. Is it meee you're looking foooor?} Yellow belted out.

[No.]

"I'm flattered, Hansel," Peter tittered as he pressed his other hand over his mouth like a blushing maiden. "But I'm saving myself for that special someone. You might know him—your friend in the red leather suit? _Yum_. Swords are always a turn on, no matter who they're pointed at."

{Hell yeah they are!}

[You do realize that you can't save things that have already been taken, right?]

Peter's grin grew tight and he dug the claws of his gloves into his chest to ease the sudden pressure there. Hawkeye eyed him warily, expression twisted unattractively. "Hansel?"

"I liked you much better in that movie," Peter confirmed as he felt blindly back for some more peanuts. Weasel must have moved the bowl out of his reach. 

"Christ, Nat was right," Hawkeye muttered under his breath. He shook his head. "I came here to ask you a few questions. A friend of mine visited you yesterday to ask you about the string of murders regarding past Stark employees."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "I hope you're not going to ask me if I killed them. She asked me about Mysterio, not Stark's bitches. I'll tell you what I told her." When Hawkeye just raised an eyebrow of his own, Peter smirked. "Look around you, Birdbrain. Of course I killed them."

Apparently Hawkeye hadn't been expecting a straight answer, because he blinked stupidly at Peter for a few moments, before blurting out, "Why?"

"Uh, because I got paid to? And because I hate Tony Stark."

{I don't hate him,} Yellow said quietly.

[You don't fucking count,] White barked, snarling at the turn in conversation. [Dammit, I was in such a good mood...]

Hawkeye had seemingly turned into a broken record as he shot back another bewildered, "Why?"

Growing annoyed, Peter leaned forward and bared his fangs at the Avenger. "Do you want honesty here, Barton?" he prodded, tone muted. "I've seen the way this type of thing goes. I don't need a reason other than I'm pissed off and want a reason to blow the world up. Stark could just be the unlucky bastard that stole my last Pringle, or it could be something deeper. You don't know! Isn't that the beauty of this eternal dance you've all damned yourselves to, _Gawkeye_?" Peter spat with a nasty grin. Weasel's sharp intake of breath and the low mutterings that erupted at the last word went ignored. Yellow had taken up a mournful rendition of 'Why Should I Cry For You' even as White growled in warning, and it made Peter feel raw and cut up— _savage_. Hawkeye's eyes widened and his hand went to his side as if to draw a gun, but he never got the chance. Peter spun abruptly on the bartop and planted his foot into Hawkeye's chest. The hero went flying into the wall with a distinctive _crack_ , and Peter dropped down to the floor, but didn't advance. He tipped his head at Hawkeye's crumpled form. "You fight a useless cause. There are monsters and there are men, and for some reason you all think the line between the two is distinctive. It's _not_. So leave me the hell alone, before I decide that I'm not in line enough for you."

The clamouring around them had risen, but Peter had been content to wave it away until his spidey sense blared loudly to his right. The bullet aimed at his head was easily avoided, but Weasel was standing just beside him, behind the bar. His honed reflexes allowed him to shoot a web down over the bar down at Weasel's leg and yank, hard. Weasel went down with a yelp, and the bullet bit into the wall in an explosion of chipped wood and plastic, right where his head had been moments before.

Yellow's pouty ballad cut short. {Oh hell no.}

[ _ **Kill them**_ ,] White bayed, voice almost demonic. [ _ **Kill them ALL**_.]

Head snapping to the side, Peter saw none other than Sunny leveling a pistol at his head with wide eyes. Even through his obvious fear, Sunny scowled at him. "If you're gonna bring heroes 'round here, Spider, it's better if you ain't here at all. We don't need the Avengers on our asses."

Peter stared back at Sunny for a moment, face blank, and several people shuffled back, unnerved. For good reason, of course.

Before anyone could blink, one of Peter's kerambits went slicing through the air and landed with deadly precision in the center of Sunny's forehead. He went down like a bag of sand. A few people jumped back, a few gasped, and a couple even leaned over and retched as Sunny fell, dead, to the floor, blood gushing out of the gaping wound in his skull and pooling on the hardwood beneath him. Peter licked his lips at the sight. White purred.

[Good. Do another one.]

"Anymore complaints, or shitty attempts on my life?" Peter asked softly as he surveyed the room with starving eyes. It was a shame they were covered at the moment. He was sure it would've sent the few bystanders still standing tall skittering back to their holes to see the murder in his gaze. Weasel let out a wheeze as he pulled himself back up with shaky hands, face pale as he looked wildly between the bullet hole in the wall and Peter. Peter smiled pleasantly and rocked back on his heels. "No one?" He wondered innocently. He sauntered over to Sunny's corpse and jerked his kerambit back out of the man's empty skull. Blood looked lovely on the shimmering colors of the blade; it'd be a shame to clean it. He tucked it back into his glove and hummed. "And I would've thought you all knew better than to aim at Weasel. If not because you're scared of him, then because you're scared of _me_. He may be a rat, but he's my rat and I am the only one who gets to threaten his well-being. Try that shit again, and I won't kill you, but you'll be _begging_ me for death when I get my claws in you. Understand?" Peter finished sweetly, head cocked and smile unsettlingly saccharine.

There were some scattered affirmations and some rapid nodding, and Peter swiveled his hips in a show of playfulness as he turned his back on the crowd, satisfied. Only to find that, while he'd been otherwise occupied, Hawkeye had somehow managed to drag himself out of the bar.

[We broke his ribs, and his arm. We felt his bones snap. How the fuck did he managed to sneak out!] White shouted furiously.

{Well, he does work for S.H.I.E.L.D. They could've picked him up or something.} Yellow's voice was absent, almost wistful.

[What the hell is up with you?] White snapped, sounding disgusted. [You feel so...sticky and emotional.]

Yellow's only reply was to start up his song again, his space in Peter's mind just a mental cesspool of despondency. Peter cringed away from it.

Shaking his head, Peter walked back to the bar and huffed. "Whatever. Let him run and cry to Fury. It'll be my message to the A-Team; get them to back the fuck off and stay out of my business."

Weasel was staring at him with a weird expression on his face, but before Peter could snap at him to knock it off, his phone rang.

Already on edge, Peter yanked it out of his pocket and snarled a low, " _What?_ " Into the speaker. The voice that came from the other end gave him pause.

" _Hoo boy, you sound pissed, but this is important. A murderous alien just crash landed into my car._ "

"Murderous alien?" Peter immediately perked up, a smirk on his lips. "Sounds lit, baby. Is this you calling in your free kill?"

" _Less lit when he landed on my damn car. And no. You said to call you if I ever needed help or some more weird shit happened, so this is me, calling you...for help._ "

Peter let out a dramatic sigh and twirled the peanut bowl back over to himself. "Anything for you, darlin'. I'll be down to take Greedo off your hands ASAP. Anything else?"

" _One thingn—ot sure if it's important—but I'm pretty sure this thing is that dude that tried to take over the world five years ago. Luke? Brodi? I don't fuckin' know._ "

Peter's eyes widened and his grin stretched to maniac proportions. He let out a stunned, giddy laugh.

{Loki?}

[Loki?]

" _Loki_ ," Peter breathed.

Oh, this was going to be so much _fun_.


	6. Loki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the bottom notes for warnings!

Peter stole a plane ticket to Tennessee, dressed himself up as innocent looking as possible, and flew to Chattanooga that night, just in case Barton decided to return with his buddies. And Peter knew they would try, because before Peter had left, he'd plucked a tracker off the ankle of his suit where Hawkeye had tried to sneak one over on him. 

So now Peter was nestled in a first class seat under the name Eugene Fitzherbert, dressed like a college student and playing Fruit Ninja on his phone. It was a three hour flight, and it was torture because when White got bored he wanted to stab things, and when Yellow got bored he started singing, which in turn only made White want to stab things _harder_. Essentially this translated in them arguing with increasing volume for three hours straight while Peter sat there and gritted his teeth against shouting at them to shut the hell up, because he was trying to look normal for once. With S.H.I.E.L.D and the A-team cracking down on his ass, Peter couldn't afford to have them finding out who he was. 

When the plane touched down, Peter was nearly vibrating with the need to get out and _move_. He had a round trip ticket for the week, and Peter debated the pros and cons of bumping his seat up to a private cab. 

[Just so you can talk to yourself?]

"Nope," Peter replied as he hauled his bag off the belt and over his shoulder. "So I can yell at you two without looking like a maniac."

{But you are a maniac,} Yellow pointed out. 

[That's his point, dickwad.]

{Oh, right!}

Peter rolled his eyes. He waltzed out of the airport and ducked into a shady gas station to change into his suit. Murderous aliens required Maximum Effort, after all.

White scoffed, [Get some new material, Spidey. Been there, done that.]

Peter ignored him as he slipped his mask over his head and crawled out the window. He swung through the decrepit part of town until he reached a familiar looking house with a shabby, broken barn in the back. Peter hummed, scanned the area for signs of ambush and, upon finding none, landed on the roof of the barn. He skittered through the hole there, and stuck to the ceiling until he could drop down to land on the cot which housed the infamous not-so-low-key Loki.

Yellow snickered. {Good one.}

Peter preened.

"I hate it when you do that," A tired voice rasped from the shadows. 

"Even when it saves your ass?" Peter sang as he began to poke and prod at the unconscious trickster on the cot. Loki's clothes were ripped and scorched, his complexion pale and gaunt. 

Harley Keener lurched into the light with a grunt, hauling a large sack over his shoulder. He sneered up at Peter, but there were bags under his eyes. "Do you have to milk that every time you show up?"

Wiggling playfully, Peter hummed. "Yep!"

Slamming the sack down next to the cot, Harley rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Spider--God, that's a dumb name--just help me move him."

"Your face is a dumb name," Peter responded absently as he felt for a pulse. "And, hm, let me think. No, we're not moving him. What do you say to providing Axolotl here a little tender love and care?" He shot Harley a grin that he couldn't see, but he was sure the other teen could feel.

"Why." The reply was toneless, exhausted. Peter would've felt bad if he still had the mental capacity to feel guilt.

{What did we say about denial, Spidey?} Yellow sing-songed.

[Shut the fuck up.]

"Because, dearest, when is it ever a bad idea to put a literal god in your debt?" Peter sat back on his haunches, still crouched over Loki's legs as he twisted around to grab the first aid kit he knew Harley kept in the bottom cabinet of the rusted kitchenette in the corner. "We heal him, wake him up, tell him we saved his life, and then that not only prevents him from killing you or your family, but also puts him in a life-debt to _me_. Exciting, isn't it?"

A conflicted expression made itself at home on Harley's face. Peter knew that was why he looked so awful--he'd been waiting for Loki to wake up and try to murder them all in their sleep. And after the Incident, as Harley called it, he was very overprotective of his sister. Which was also why he probably wasn't going to take Peter's next suggestion very well. But Peter decided to let Harley agree to keeping Loki around a bit longer before tossing anything else on him.

There was a worrying amount of blood coming from the gash in the God of Mischeif's side, and Peter drew out the stitching needle from the first aid kit as he waited for Harley to answer him. He hummed a jaunty tune and began to thread Loki's side back together. Not that he would die from blood loss, of course, but it was better to have a few props to go with his 'saved your life' story.

"Fine!" Harley huffed out abruptly. He threw up his hands. "He can stay. Just keep him away from Pen, you hear me? Your little evil schemes don't come _near_ her."

{He's so protective, it's cute.} Yellow mused.

[It's fucking disgusting.] White growled.

"Yes sir," Peter cooed with a mock salute. He leaned forward and bit the end of the thread off with his teeth, tossing the rest of the spool and the needle back into the kit. "However, they'll be getting all over _you_ , so why don't you go be useful and go to the store for gauze." He shook the box in Harley's direction with a sly grin. "You're out."

"I hate you," Harley deadpanned as he snatched the box to rifle through it and see what else they needed.

"Love you too, Harls!"

 

•🕸️•

 

_It was May. He'd been killing people for a year now, and yet as he boarded the plane that would take him to his next target, Peter felt something dark swirling in his chest and crawling up his throat like bile. It tasted like burnt meatloaf, saline, and cherry blossoms._

_White and Yellow were silent--still there, just not talking. A fucking miracle so rare it made him uneasy._

_Peter wasn't entirely sure what it was, but this month had something in his chest tightening, a reluctance to the normal grace of his limbs, and low murmurings of voices he didn't remember in his head. He hated it. This trepidation in doing his damn job that he'd never experienced before, like he still any sort of sympathy to give for those at the end of his blades. Like he could **afford** it._

_Thankfully, Weasel's irritated tenor echoed through his head and shoved him from his seat where he'd frozen, and out of the plane, which had landed while he was--_

_{Disassociating.}_

_\--thinking._

__"Look, Spider, you're young. You've got a hell of a bite, but people will still walk all over your mutate ass if you don't stop pussyfooting around and give them something to be scared about. A deterrent." __

_Not that Peter hadn't already been planning on that. Several people had already come across him in his line of work, taking up his calling cards and shutting their blinds and bolting their doors for wary reassurance. People did fear him. Just not the people Weasel contacted. Not yet._

_But they would. Oh, how they would fear him._

_Peter was able to cobble his normal pep and sway back together just in time to reach the address he'd pinpointed his target at._

_Harley stumbled outside, bogged down by the grocery bags in his arms. They were for the barn, so he and Pen wouldn't starve, but damn if it didn't put a dent in his paycheck._

_There had been no one in the house, so Harley assumed that she had taken refuge in the barn while Harley left to get away from their mother's boyfriend. But as Harley stepped down the path towards the barn, a prickle of unease climbed up the nocks of his spine. He shivered._

_He started when a shout came from around the back of the barn, eyes widening. The bags were thrown to the ground as he bolted the rest of the way down the path and curved around the wall. Harley didn't even stop once he'd reached the other side, just using his momentum to carry himself forward and bodyslam Jason off his sister. The man squawked, teetered, drunken, and fell back away from Pen, who scrambled to her feet and darted for the barn wall, pressing her back against with wide, spooked eyes._

_She had bruises around her wrists and a cut across her forehead. Harley didn't need to know anything else._

_He cracked Jason across the face, once, twice--before the prick gathered himself enough to roll them. He pinned Harley to the ground and started in on his face, punches sloppy but heavy. Blood rushed past Harley's ears, white spots dotted his vision, and he felt his jaw pop out of place under the onslaught._

_When Jason finally got off him, all Harley could do was loll his head to the side and groan, blood in his mouth and pooling in his nose. He tried to roll over and push himself up, only to get a swift kick in the stomach for his trouble. Then another, and another, until his bruised stomach forced him to upchuck its contents all over Jason's dumbass cowboy boots. Harley bared his teeth up at him, shaky and vindictive, and was promptly kneed in the face._

_Pen was screaming, Jason was shouting, but Harley could barely hear any of it beneath the ringing in his head. But then, like something out of a cartoon, something small flew through the air and planted itself in Jason's temple. He stopped abruptly, mouth agape, and fell over like a sack of ugly potatoes. Delirious, Harley wheezed out a gurgly laugh at the sight, not yet registering the blood that bubbled out from his mother's boyfriend's head._

_"Ah, finally! A guy who appreciates the fine arts!" a voice chirped from his left, sounding delighted._

_Harley managed to turn his head, only to catch sight of a dark figure with sharp claws, accented in red. They waltzed forward, stance predatory, and stopped just in front of Pen. Harley coughed out a silent protest, but the figure just crouched before her and murmured, "I think your brother could use a hug, don't you?"_

_Without hesitation, Pen darted around them and threw herself at Harley, knocking him back to the ground and burying her face in his shoulder. Harley let out a wheeze, wrapping an arm around her protectively as he watched the figure walk over to where Jason lay, kick him a bit, and hum._

_"Damn, you're still alive?" They paused, head tipped, and let out a snort. "Stubborn indeed." Another pause, then a laugh. "That's just **rude** , White."_

_They knelt down, ripped the thing--a small, curved knife--out of Jason's temple, then reached back and nearly sliced through the back of his neck. Jason jerked, went rigid, then fell limp, glassy eyed and drooling. The smell of piss filled the air, and Harley felt his stomach roll again, even though there was nothing left for him to throw up._

_The figure stood and sighed. "Welp, that's an asshole down and a couple hundred thousand in my pocket. No--NO. Don't fucking sing--I GOT A POCKET, GOT A POCKET FULL OF SUNSHINE, I GOT A LOVE AND I KNOW THAT IT'S ALL--" They stopped shrieking lyrics abruptly and slumped with a groan of relief. "Thank fuck."_

_"Who," Harley rasped out. "W-Who are you?"_

_"Oh, right! I forgot you were still there." They took a step closer, but stopped when Harley recoiled, hold tightening enough on Pen to make her whimper. "I'm the Spider, and I would say that I just did you a big favor, yeah? I saw you when I came up--you've got some spunk, baby! I like that. Here, tell ya what," They mused as they tucked two clawed fingers into the red symbol on their chest. Harley squinted. Huh. It was a spider. Then, a small piece of cardstock came flying at his face, nearly nicking him in the eye. "Next time you need someone to go bye-bye, just call me and I'll let you off free! Think of it like a coupon."_

_Harley tried to discreetly push back away from them as he registered just what the hell had happened, and what they were offering. "Why would you give me something like that? I don't know you."_

_To that, they threw their head back and laughed, long and hysterical. "Why does anyone do anything? Sheer. Absolute. **Boredom!** Fuck the free kill then, even if it still stands. Call me if anything interesting ever happens around here that you might need my help with. Or, hell, if you're just bored too. You pack quite the punch--we could scheme together sometime."_

_And, against all sense, one of glimmering red lenses of their mask (it had to be a mask, right?) squinted shut in a conspiratorial wink. Then they grabbed Jason by the hair, made sure Pen still had her face turned away, and ripped his head off with ease. Harley went green._

_"Stupid contractors, wanting proof. Here's your proof, fucker," they grumbled as they pulled out a sack and dropped Jason's dripping head into it. "Well, I best be off. Ta ta for now, Mr. Keener! Until we meet again!" They sang as they bounded away, slinging something white up towards the roof of the barn and launching off into the night._

 

 

·🕸·

 

 

Harley would never forget that night. Would never live down how deep into the Spider's shit it got him into. Especially when it was the reason that, when the Spider had mentioned staying at his house to watch over Loki (though Harley may have shouted and protested) he ultimately let them have the guest bedroom.

The Spider may have helped him out on more than one occasion, but that didn't mean that Harley trusted them. He was very, very wary of letting them sleep in the same hall as Pen (doubly so since he didn't know the Spider's gender and had no clue if he needed to be worried about something Jason-esque happening), but it couldn't be avoided. Pen's room was the one closest to the door, so Harley could only hope that if anything happened, she could make a quick getaway.

But it had already been four days, and the Spider hadn't done anything to cause suspicion. They talked to themself and often went quiet for worrying periods of time, but they ultimately kept to themself and spent most of their time in the game room where Loki was being kept. 

All in all, Harley was just tentatively waiting for the God of Mischief to wake up so the Spider could get their dues and go. Maybe then Harley could finally get some sleep. 

But five days in, everything went to shit.

Harley was very angrily not sleeping when the front wall of his house was blown apart. The explosion rocked the entire foundation and sent him to the floor, vision blurred as he tried to shoot to his feet only to fall and collide with his deak on the way down. Once he managed to claw his way up the wall, Harley ran for Pen's room and skidded to a halt when he heard a familiar cackle slice through the air. He looked upon the scene in front of him with complete and utter bewilderment. 

Standing just inside the hole that used to be the left wall of the living room, was a large man with grayed hair and metal strewn all about his person. His left eye was glowing a fiery shade of orange, highlighting the scowl on his face. He held a smoking gun in his hands, the tip of it dimming down, like it had just been fired.

On the other side of the room stood Pen, and in front of her, a brunet boy with curly hair, a hole in the side of his abdomen still glowing and smoking. He had a hand over it, body hunched, but he didn't seem fazed by the pain. He lifted his head, eyes wild, and--

Harley would know that feral grin anywhere.

"Is that the best you can do, old man?" The Spider crowed ecstatically, straightening as the flesh beneath his fingers slowly began to knit back together.

"Harley!" Pen cried as she sprinted out from behind the Spider and into Harley's arms. 

All Harley could do was watch as the cyborg man moved his gun to follow Pen, only to have the Spider step in front of it again with a pleasant smile.

"Hey now, we were having fun! Don't go all wandering eyes on me now," he purred with a broken glass grin. The Spider had adopted a loose fighting stance, as if he didn't consider the man in front of him a true threat. 

"I tracked Loki here. I know you're harboring him," The man growled, face twisted up in a snarl as he leveled his gun at the Spider's face, right between his eyes. "I'm here to take him back."

The Spider hummed, light and sounding purposefully off-key. "No can do, Victor! I need him."

The man--was Victor his name? Did the Spider know him?--hissed out a curse and pulled the trigger on his scary looking gun. Harley hastily slapped his hands over Pen's eyes, but it wasn't necessary. He hadn't even seen the Spider _move_ and yet, one second he was about to get his head blown off, and the next was right in front of the cyborg man, a hand around the barrel of the gun, which was now crushed like crumpled paper beneath his fist. The Spider, crazy bastard that he was, playfully slid a hand up the man's chest while he was distracted, staring at his gun like he'd never seen it before.

"Ooo, your pecs almost rival Pooly's! I'm vee jealous," he purred, bright eyed and chipper as he felt up the man who had just tried to shoot him in the face.

"Fuckin'--" the cyborg man seethed as he planted his fist into the Spider's abdomen, sending him flying back through the drywall on the other side of the room. " _Pest._ "

"Pen, run," Harley barked as he shoved his sister behind him. The man had turned his attention back to them, discarding his ruined gun and pulling out another one from the holsters on his belt. That glowing orange eye flicked between them between ultimately settling on aiming at Harley. He swallowed.

"Tell me where the Trickster is. Maybe I'll let the little one live."

Harley set his jaw, expression morphing into a lethal glower. He didn't get a chance to retort, because it was only a moment later that the Spider came flying out of the rubble of the wall and tackled the man to the ground. In seconds, the tool belt filled with guns was flung out the hole in the outer wall, and the Spider had a hand clutching the side of the man's face with a look like he was wielding a large, particularly fun explosive. 

The Spider shook out his dusty curls as a metal hand shoved and smacked uselessly against his legs, a pleasant smile on his lips. "Wanna try that again?"

"Just give me the fucking alien," he snarled in return, livid.

"After all the time I spent saving his ass? HA! Hell no. I'm making sure he knows my dues before you run off with him to God knows where." That tone was one that Harley hadn't heard before. Dark and low, oddly serious for the morbidly cheerful merc. His eyes had lost their bright sheen of hysteria, replaced by something sharp and keen. Viciously intelligent.

Something... _bad_ , had happened between the Spider's first visit and this one. Harley wasn't sure he wanted to know what.

A flicker of green and gold in the corner of his eye, and then a scoff. "I should have known."

Every eye turned abruptly to the doorway next to the now destroyed television, where a pale and gaunt Loki stood, leaning heavily against the doorframe. He had a half-hearted sneer on his lips as he surveyed them all, but his eyes flickered with wariness when they alighted upon the man pinned to the floor.

Loki levered himself upright and huffed, regarding the Spider with narrow assessment. "Earth is never a good place to look for haven. At least I have fallen upon a human with some sense."

"Is _that_ what you'd call it?" Harley growled under his breath.

The Spider shot him a smirk and a flirtatious wink, amused. He turned back to Loki even as the man beneath him redoubled his efforts to buck him off, furious. "Life debt's a bitch, yeah Yancy?" He leered, that dark edge shuttering away behind his usual oddness. "Glad to hear you're accommodating!" 

"Yancy?" Loki uttered, brow raised in bemusement. He shook his head, discarding it, and turned his gaze to the man under the Spider. "As for you, Cable." His lips curled up into a smile, cruel and condescending. Spider-like. Harley's heart began to sink. "Well, we have unfinished business, do we not?"

"Family meeting!" the Spider sang, abruptly backflipping off Cable and firing something white at his metal hand. 

As Cable began to roar his fury in a series of colorful swear words, the Spider turned to Harley, haloed by the flames eating away at the outer wall, and the shadows of the debris now strewn about in what used to be their living room. Harley swallowed. The Spider grinned. "Mind giving us a minute, Penny?"

Pen clutched Harley's hand tighter, hesitant, but after a moment, Harley gave a jerky nod and she ran off towards the barn. Harley felt a few hundred pounds of stress immediately ease off his shoulders. He sighed, then snapped his gaze back to the trio before him.

"Alright," he snapped before the Spider could start. He was tired, he was anxious, he was scared, but above all--Harley was _pissed_. "All of you need to start explaing the real reasons you're in my fucking house."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: domestic abuse and Spider-like violence. If you'd like to skip it, just stop at "Harley stumbled outside" and keep going until you reach the end of the italics. Stay safe, loves.


	7. Cable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than expected but uuuhhh...yeah I've got no excuse. 
> 
> Betaed by the ever patient Pineau_noir!

"He said he had a way to turn back time with magic," Cable gruffed from his place sitting on the floor, hand still webbed to the hardwood. He had exhausted his shouting about ten minutes ago, now resigned to their little fucked up version of group therapy in hopes of getting what he came for.

"I said I could take you to someone with the ability, not that I had it myself," Loki drawled, much more irritable than he had been when they started.

{That's because of us, right?}

[Oh yeah, that's definitely because of us. Our ability to enrage knows no bounds.]

Peter hummed in agreement as he felt the last of his ribs crack back into place. Cable packed a hell of a punch. 

"You bolted as soon as I turned my back, you snake," Cable snarled, his metal eye glowing a toxic shade of orange.

{Ooo, pretty! Do you think he can fire lasers out of it?}

Loki turned his head towards Cable and gave a sibilant hiss, tongue flickering out much like a snake's. Cable's face twisted in rage. Peter giggled wildly, rocking back on his heels. "Cheeky! I knew I'd like you."

The god of mischief regarded Peter with an odd expression. "I hope you plan on cashing in your debt soon, Spider. I do not plan to stay on this putrid planet any longer than I must. Especially not with present company." He gave Cable a disdainful look. "So if you had something in mind, tell me now."

Peter smirked, eyes half-lidded as he waltzed over to the crumbling wall and began to casually walk up it. "'Fraid not, Axotol!" He sang playfully as he moved to pose dramatically on the ceiling. 

{We already used that one!} Yellow whined.

[Yeah, but he wasn't awake to appreciate it, you fucking walnut,] White shot back with a growl of annoyance.

"I'm not really sure what I want from you yet. I want you as a card up my sleeve. Something to play only if I really have to," Peter mused.

"I refuse to leave this realm only to be dragged back by a life-debt!" Loki snapped, eyes glowing a rather dashing shade of emerald. But was it power in them, or _fear_? Peter had an inkling.

He grinned and spun on heel to pace the side of ceiling where Cable was. "Sucks to suck, Lokes," he leered with a mocking swing of his hips. "I don't need you just yet, so I don't care what you do between now and then, as long as you come when I call. But hey! Opportunity! Wander around a bit, maybe see what your brother was so fussed up about."

Loki scoffed. "I already know. It does not take a genius to discover that my brother's proclivities have narrowed to a singular snivelling quim residing on your ball of toxic waste."

"Ouch." Peter snickered.

"What about our deal, Trickster," Cable barked. He jerked in his restraints, only to pause when Harley leveled the barrel of his own gun back at his head. Cable growled. "I helped you. All I want is to go back to my own damn time. So you had better pay up, you little punk, or I'm gonna--"

"What?" Loki drawled. "What will you do to me? It seems to me that you're a bit _tied up_ at the moment, dear Cable. You obviously won't be doing anything to anybody."

[Ha! The Milk Dud had jokes.]

{I dunno, with that arm, he could do anything he wants to me,} Yellow purred, salacious.

White snarled abruptly, low and guttral. Peter went rigid. [ _Fuck no._ ]

"Shut the fuck up, White," Peter hissed under his breath. "Check your hangups, you asshole."

"Listen, Cable-guy," Harley started, only to pause and glare when Peter barked out a laugh. "Why are you wasting your time going after Loki now that you know that he can't actually do what he said he would? If you want to go back to your own time so badly, then shouldn't you be racing for the next best thing?"

Cable gave Harley a once over, his cybernetic eye swivelling to zero in on him. "I don't know this world well. I came back to this time to kill the man who killed my family before he has the chance. But about a month ago, the toy of my daughter's that I have as a keepsake reverted back to its original state, indicating that they're alive. That something changed. So now I just want to go home, but the only spacial manipulator I know of is the _brat_ standing across from me."

Loki fluttered his fingers mockingly in retort, sneering.

Peter's head snapped over to look at Cable. A slow, menacing grin curled over his lips as he prowled forward over the ceiling until he was hanging over Cable's head. Sticking the end of a web to the plaster, Peter dropped down to hang just in front of Cable's face, who was looking between the ceiling and Peter with increasing incredulity.

"So, let's say someone else could lead you to someone who can do what you need them to. For a price, of course. A little guide fee," he purred, an eyebrow cocked in question.

"And you can do that?" Cable growled sarcastically. "Saying I take that deal, how much do you want?"

"Who says I want money?" Peter grinned.

{But...money buys food. We like food!} Yellow whined.

White's irritation spiked. [Shut. Up. You fucking _moron_. I see where he's going with this.]

Cable's gaze narrowed further. "What do you want?"

Peter bopped his head side to side and clicked his tongue. "A favor. You'll owe me one, just like Jolly Green over there. Sound fair?"

"What kind of favor?"

"Never you mind, Larry," Peter sang as he twisted elegantly and backflipped onto the floor, facing away from Cable. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes half-lidded and lips curled sharply upward. "Just know that I always collect."

 

•⚔️•

 

The thing about being an Avenger was, side projects, no matter how important they might seem to _you_ , ultimately got shoved to the side when something big came up. And something big did indeed come up.

Yet another world ending endeavor fired up right in the middle of _yet another_ squabble between Cap and Stark. Though the fights had lessened in hostility, they had increased in frequency. No one else but Bucky and Wade seemed surprised by it. 

"This is normal," Nat had uttered into her coffee one morning when Wade had walked into the kitchen to find the two of them damn near frothing at the mouth as they hissed veiled insults back and forth.

But the fight they'd gotten into just before shit went sideways was, yet again, over Spider-Man. Or, his new mimic, to be precise.

Apparently, Stark had gone out of his way to kidnap someone to use as leverage in luring the Spider into their net, and Cap was _not_ happy about it. Not about the 'breaking the rules' part, necessarily, as both Wade and Bucky could attest, but more about the fact that Tony was now keeping whoever he'd nabbed in the Tower. Cap was also not thrilled to find that the Tower had prison cells.

Before either one of them could explode at the other, however, the ground had shaken and 'lo and behold, a giant worm, like something out of Beetlejuice, burst from the ground by the coast, and started wrecking fault lines deep into the city. The Avengers assembled, went to go kick rear end, and the Spider got put on hold.

Which was how Wade ended up here, sucked down, halfway into the gullet of a smaller, no less disgusting worm, slowly suffocating as the thing struggled to swallow him. Gritting his teeth and purposefully popping his shoulder out of place to get to his katanas, Wade twisted the little he could and pulled a Hercules, slicing through the meat of the worm's throat and swinging Bea in a circle, lopping off Wormy's head. Shoving his way out of a decapitated mutant worm's esophagus was not where Wade saw himself this morning, but hey, he took wins where he could get them. Well, if one could count collapsing onto dirty pavement, heaving in air as the acid spit he was covered in struggled against his healing factor a _win_.

Staggering back to his feet, Wade slid Bea and Arthur back into their sheathes as he took a second to catalogue the battle before him. Cap and Stark were tag teaming the big one, doing that cool thing where Stark shot and Cap aimed and they managed to raze through hoards of baddies in seconds. It seemed to be working, as momma worm seemed to be slowing down in her wiggly destruction and screeching at increasing volume. The rest of the worms were slowing with it, allowing Nat and Clint to pick them off with relative ease. 

Satisfied and feeling marginally lighter, Wade reached back to grab his katanas once more so he could leap back into the fray, only the for the dead worm next to him to give a great, jerky spasm and smash its tail into him. 

Wade's breath wooshed out of him as he was flung up and across a few blocks, his ribs cracking back into place mid-air--only to immediately snap again as he crashed into a building with far too much glass.

His vision swirled to black, and the sweet embrace of death teased at the edges of his senses, her cold, gentle touch skimming across his forehead and laughing.

" _Almost, Wade. Not quite._ "

Then she was gone, and Wade was simply floating in the haze of his own mind as he waited for his body to knit back together enough for him to regain consciousness. It always felt longer than it was, which was why Wade was startled to feel himself yanked quickly back into reality by a sharp pain in his shoulder. 

He jerked awake with a gasp, then hissed as everything that was still wrong with his body made itself known. Beside him, there was a high, pleased noise.

"Oh good, you're alive!" A voice chirped, and suddenly the throbbing pain in his shoulder was exacerbated by someone wrenching the knife there out with all the finesse of a hurricane ripping through a trailer park. "We were worried there for a sec. It'd be such a waste to see someone as ripped as you bite it too early."

"A little late, there, sweetums," Wade groaned, the snark instinctive even as he tried to heave himself into a sitting position. No luck. Instead, he rolled his head to the side and blinked. 

A very familiar mask squinted down at him, crimson lenses narrowed in mirth. The Spider giggled and spun the knife in his hand absently, before slipping it back into his glove, still covered in Wade's blood. "Mm, man of the century, everybody. They don't make 'em like this anymore!" Spider proclaimed as he crawled closer, planting one clawed hand beside Wade's head to loom over him. "Rockin' bod, table manners, _and_ a sense of humor? What a catch," Spider purred as he (she? they?) leaned down closer to Wade's face, somehow fluttering his eyelashes through his mask.

"What can I say? The angels knew what they were doing when they put me together," Wade replied easily, straining to calm his quickening heartbeat.

"Did it hurt when you fell, then?" The Spider asked curiously.

"From heaven? Nah, I'm basically Hephaestus. How about you, the angels hear you on high?"

"No, but I did scrape my knees crawling up from hell," Spider replied, his obvious smirk tainting his tone and turning it smug. If they were in a battle of wits, the Spider was clearly there to win.

"I'd kiss it better, but I don't put out until the third date. You gotta put a ring on it, Spidey," Wade retorted cheerfully, gaze flicking toward the clear hole in the wall that he'd come through. The big worm was gone, from what he could see. The rest of the team would start to wonder where he was soon. He just needed to stall until they got there.

There was a pause, and then a bark of laughter. "A shame. I'm kind of just flattered you know my name, Pooly! I'm your _biggest fan_."

The mask stretched oddly, like the Spider was grinning beneath it. It was...unnerving.

"I'd give you an autograph, but I currently can't feel my arms," Wade lamented, giving his fingers a valiant twitch to demonstrate. "What's a nice place like you doing in a guy like this?" he chirped conversationally, a faint pang in his chest the only reminder of the last time he'd used that particular line.

"Well, I was watching the show until you crashed my party," the Spider replied. He tapped a clawed finger against Wade's chest, flicking a particularly jagged shard of glass out of his pectoral. Wade winced. "But I'm not here on vacation, unfortunately. You know why I'm here, Pooly, don't cha? Your Tin Man stole something from me, and I don't take well to people stealing my shit. But!" Here he poked at Wade's cheek, playful. "Since we like you, we'll give you a heads up!" His palm cracked into the concrete beside Wade, a lethal rigidity smoothing over his limbs. "I am going to retrieve what Stark has taken from me, and then I am going to _kill_ him. And after that, I expect the rest of them to leave me the hell alone. The next one of your teammates to wander into my territory won't make it out alive. That, I can promise you." 

Wade shoved down a shudder and latched onto the one constant he had in any odd and end situation. "Except me."

The Spider relaxed slightly, humming as he leaned over Wade again, tone smooth and almost _sensual_ as he whispered, "Except you."

And then, before Wade could reply or question, the Spider's head swiveled to the side and his chest shook with a growl. In a blur of black and red, the Spider was gone. Then, not a minute later, Natasha poked her head into the room, carefully surveying the destruction of and around Wade with a blank expression. She ventured forward once she discerned no further threats, picking her way over the debris towards him. "You missed roll call, Wade. Your attendance record's gonna suffer."

"He was here," Wade said lowly once she was close enough to hear, his disregard for their usual banter letting her know that something was up. "The Spider. He was here, watching the fight. I spoke to him."

Her eyes widened. "The Spider was here? What did he say to you?"

Wade groaned as he forced himself up at last, his shoulder finally locking back into place in tandem with his ribs. Nat came forward to heaved him to his feet, steadying him when he wobbled. He gave her a pained but grateful smile. "It was...weird, definitely."

"Not a surprise," Nat murmured as she stepped away, watching with vague interest as Wade rolled his ankle and his bent knee cracked back into the right angle. "That's a can of crazy I wouldn't want to open again."

"Weeeeeell," Wade said, averting his eyes. "We may not have a choice. The Spider said that he was going after Stark. Whoever Stark took must've been important enough to the Spider to _really_ piss him off. He basically threatened to kill any Avenger that came after him, after he took out of Stark." He skipped over the part where the Spider had implied he would spare Wade. Not only in that he knew he couldn't kill Wade, but had _agreed_ when Wade said he was an exception. While that was certainly odd, it wasn't much to note. Creepy flirting was creepy flirting. Nat didn't need to hear about it.

"He's planning to kill Tony?" Nat reaffirmed. She scoffed when Wade nodded. " Wish I could say I was surprised. We need to head back to the Tower. _Now_."

Wade jogged after Nat as she slipped back into the shadows to travel faster. How she did it, Wade didn't know, and he'd once had to snipe military scouts trained in the art of camouflage out of heavy brush. (He'd never missed).

"Who did Stark nab, then? Did we figure out the Spider's identity while I was catching up on my Z's? Are we holding a guy's mother hostage right now? Because if so, I kinda agree with Cap--dumb move. You don't mess with a boy's mother."

"Rambling, Deadpool. Cool it." Nat took them down the abandoned staircase, the dust and rust of this and the earlier room telling Wade that it was probably condemned. It explained why the Spider was able to hang out there, in any case. Nat glanced back at him. "And I sincerely doubt the guy we've got in the cells could be anyone's mother. If he's that important to the Spider, it's obviously for something a bit more poignant than sentiment," she finished as they raced down the steps together, Nat using the railings to drop down several floors at a time and Wade simply ramping off one corner to the next.

Wade halted at the bottom of the steps before they could exit the building, eyes wide. "Who do we have?"

Nat pushed open the door and gave him a look. "I think it would be better to show you."

 

•⚔️•

 

Stark, now suitless but still coated in a thin film of worm juice (as everyone but Nat and Bucky were), begrudgingly led Wade, Cap, and Nat down into the depths of the Tower, where every lock known to man, woman, and extraterrestrial guarded a hoard of empty cells and rooms. 

He stopped at yet another door and swiped a key card, put in a pin, scanned his palm, and flipped a previously flat switch that had extended from the wall. The thick, reinforced metal door slid open in a series of angled slats, and they stepped through into another hallway.

Wade whistled, impressed. "What kind of superbaddie do you have down here that he needs all of that?"

"It's not to keep him in," Stark grumbled, eyes shadowed and tired. "It's to keep his buddies _out_."

"Preemptive protection." Wade shot Stark some fingerguns, aiming to lighten the somber mood. "Gotcha!" He chirped, stoutly ignoring Stark's supremely unimpressed face as the man led them further down the hallway to stop in front of yet another metal door with a thick square of one-way glass beside it. 

Beyond the glass was a smaller room, with only a shimmering, red forcefield dividing it from the cell itself. There, sitting curled up in the center of the blank cell, must've been their hostage. Wade couldn't see their face, but from here he couldn't definitely see that they were male. 

Stark opened the metal door with a murmur to F.R.I.D.A.Y., and stepped through. Cap and Nat didn't make to follow, so Wade stayed where he was, looking through the glass window with interest. The door shut behind Stark, and he tipped his head. 

Then the prisoner raised their head, and Wade's eyes widened. 

"No fucking _way_."


End file.
